Not necessarily! I always run ln -s '/usr/bin/$EDITOR' $(which $EDITOR)
after a fresh install, so I have a valid executable on the path called $EDITOR
.
Of course, then I have to make sure to add export EDITOR=\$EDITOR
to my .bashrc
. (Obviously.)
Yes, a lot of developers have done this. Many examples have been posted on this thread (OsmAnd, Conversations, Davx5) - Mindustry is another example. free on f-droid (and Google store too I think), but $10 on Steam.