From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.bugs Subject: bug#21695: [External] : bug#21695: 25.0.50; Change most occurrences of `setq' in Emacs manual to `customize-set-variable'? Really? Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2021 23:42:46 -0400 Message-ID: References: <97d3ff2c-9e72-4004-88a9-08130ac99a74@default> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="21867"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: 21695@debbugs.gnu.org, hmelman@gmail.com To: Drew Adams Original-X-From: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sun Sep 05 05:43:12 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1mMj3m-0005XD-Uf for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 05 Sep 2021 05:43:10 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:59878 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mMj3l-0005dC-0f for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Sat, 04 Sep 2021 23:43:09 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:37118) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mMj3e-0005cv-Ik for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Sep 2021 23:43:02 -0400 Original-Received: from debbugs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.43]:37387) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_128_GCM_SHA256:128) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mMj3e-0005NM-BS for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Sep 2021 23:43:02 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-debbugs by debbugs.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1mMj3e-0004gd-5s for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Sep 2021 23:43:02 -0400 X-Loop: help-debbugs@gnu.org Resent-From: Richard Stallman Original-Sender: "Debbugs-submit" Resent-CC: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Resent-Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2021 03:43:02 +0000 Resent-Message-ID: Resent-Sender: help-debbugs@gnu.org X-GNU-PR-Message: followup 21695 X-GNU-PR-Package: emacs Original-Received: via spool by 21695-submit@debbugs.gnu.org id=B21695.163081337617998 (code B ref 21695); Sun, 05 Sep 2021 03:43:02 +0000 Original-Received: (at 21695) by debbugs.gnu.org; 5 Sep 2021 03:42:56 +0000 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:48931 helo=debbugs.gnu.org) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1mMj3Y-0004gD-9u for submit@debbugs.gnu.org; Sat, 04 Sep 2021 23:42:56 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:49218) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1mMj3U-0004ft-AF for 21695@debbugs.gnu.org; Sat, 04 Sep 2021 23:42:55 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:52834) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mMj3O-0005CJ-T1; Sat, 04 Sep 2021 23:42:46 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mMj3O-000140-Or; Sat, 04 Sep 2021 23:42:46 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from Drew Adams on Thu, 2 Sep 2021 17:08:22 +0000) X-BeenThere: debbugs-submit@debbugs.gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list X-BeenThere: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org List-Id: "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "bug-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.bugs:213447 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > What was suggested is that for Lisp use > it's appropriate to use `customize-set-variable', > not `setq'. Yes, that was the suggestion that I wrote to oppose. I claim that using setq is valid and reliable in nearly all cases, so the cost in inconvenience of that suggestion would outweigh the benefit. > I have a feeling that most of those 462 with :set actually require > that people use customize-set-variable to set them in the init file. I accidentally omitted "don't" here. Sorry. It should say > I have a feeling that most of those 462 with :set don't actually require > that people use customize-set-variable to set them in the init file. > > I suspect that, for most of them, :set is meant to handle the case > > where you change the setting once the feature is already in use. > Why do you suspect that? Because all uses of the variable are in the same file that contains the defcustom. When .emacs is running, the variable is not defined, We designed Customize to handle the case where the variable has already been set when the defcustom is executed. For these variables, there should be no problem, even if the variable uses :set. > And what difference does > it make when (or why) you change the value? The issue was defined that way. The case we are talking about is where .emacs sets the variable and doesn't use `customize-set-variable' to do it. There may be a real problem with a few variables. I can't be sure there isn't. But it will be just a few variables -- those that use :set and _are already defined_ when .emacs runs. This means they are variables that have a special, important role in Emacs, more important than customizing some Lisp library. There are not many of these which use :set. And perhaps not even all of those variables will have an actual problem. -- Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org) Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)