bug#58634: Long delay with blank screen whilst loading desktop at emacs startup

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Eli.

On Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 21:12:37 +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2022 17:15:19 +0000
> > Cc: juri@linkov.net, 58634@debbugs.gnu.org, acm@muc.de
> > From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>

> > Hello, Eli.

> > On Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 18:57:28 +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > > > Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2022 15:42:54 +0000
> > > > Cc: juri@linkov.net, 58634@debbugs.gnu.org, acm@muc.de
> > > > From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>

> > > > > I'm against adding this kind of trace.

> > > > Yes, that's clear, but you haven't suggested anything better.  Emacs
> > > > freezing for large portions of a minute, or even longer, is not a good
> > > > thing.

> > > I suggest to do nothing about that.

> > Yes.  I don't understand that.  Emacs hangs irritatingly, and there's a
> > simple fix.  You're not prepared to apply it, to try it out, or even to
> > look at it.

> If you want some messages to be displayed, you should be able to
> sprinkle your init file with them, right?

No.  I want reassurance that my Emacs hasn't hung completely, and giving
some indication of how long it's going to be busy is also wanted.  Random
messages from .emacs won't help, here.

> You can also define a desktop-after-read-hook function to display
> something, if you want.

I wasn't aware of this hook.  Being run just once at the end of
desktop-read, it doesn't look like it can be used to provide any
information about the progress of that desktop-read.

> Assuming this will make the frame display something, why impose your
> personal preferences on everyone?

That's not fair.  One could make the same insinuation against anybody who
added an option for users.  My "personal preferences" here are a totally
neutral, factual display which is not imposed on anybody; there is a
defcustom to switch that display off.  There is even the possibility of
making its default nil.

> I'm not aware of any complaints about what happens when desktop.el
> restores a session (one more reason to consider your case a rare one).

We simply don't know how common it is.  It's the sort of phenomenon that
irritates, but not enough to be bothered to do anything about it.  I've
been irritated by it for quite some time, also irritated in previous
years by random buffers being displayed on my screen at startup without
understanding why.  Now I do understand why, and have made amendments to
my Emacs so that these things don't happen any more.

I was proposing to give users a choice between different sorts of
irritation.  I get irritated at indeterminate waits for something to
happen, you get irritated by half a minute's worth of a counter
incrementing on a screen.  I will solve my personal problem by
incorporating my changes into every current and future version of Emacs
on my machine.

> > What about the other remaining matter - that (message "") in info.el?
> > Presumably we're waiting on some response from Juri.

> Yes.  Assuming my guess is correct, I'm okay with removing that.

OK, thanks!

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).