From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Luc Teirlinck Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Documentation for custom-file - is not (load custom-file) needed? Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 23:39:31 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <200412070539.iB75dV924747@raven.dms.auburn.edu> References: <075b01c4d9a4$52799460$0200a8c0@sedrcw11488> <00bb01c4daee$5eb81350$0200a8c0@sedrcw11488> <200412051733.iB5HXIX13206@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <000001c4db1a$8d3770f0$0200a8c0@sedrcw11488> <200412060046.iB60kZj15003@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <003e01c4db31$e45a2550$0200a8c0@sedrcw11488> <200412060402.iB6421q15173@raven.dms.auburn.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1102399134 12168 80.91.229.6 (7 Dec 2004 05:58:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 05:58:54 +0000 (UTC) Cc: lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se, jpw@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Dec 07 06:58:50 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1CbYN7-0002Lb-00 for ; Tue, 07 Dec 2004 06:58:49 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CbYWu-0000hn-B6 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 07 Dec 2004 01:08:56 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CbYVw-0000Mx-KK for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 07 Dec 2004 01:07:56 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CbYVq-0000Jm-QV for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 07 Dec 2004 01:07:51 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CbYVq-0000Hp-JL for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 07 Dec 2004 01:07:50 -0500 Original-Received: from [131.204.53.104] (helo=manatee.dms.auburn.edu) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CbY66-0000Uf-Ob; Tue, 07 Dec 2004 00:41:15 -0500 Original-Received: from raven.dms.auburn.edu (raven.dms.auburn.edu [131.204.53.29]) by manatee.dms.auburn.edu (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id iB75fDFu001882; Mon, 6 Dec 2004 23:41:14 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: (from teirllm@localhost) by raven.dms.auburn.edu (8.11.7p1+Sun/8.11.7) id iB75dV924747; Mon, 6 Dec 2004 23:39:31 -0600 (CST) X-Authentication-Warning: raven.dms.auburn.edu: teirllm set sender to teirllm@dms.auburn.edu using -f Original-To: rms@gnu.org In-reply-to: (message from Richard Stallman on Mon, 06 Dec 2004 23:23:59 -0500) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:30795 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:30795 Richard Stallman wrote: If you just set `custom-file' with a setq in the user's init file, the :set and :get functions will not be called when the user's init file is loaded. So you will have to insert calls to named functions in the user's init file that can be updated whenever Custom changes, without need to update the user's init file. I do not follow you here. What calls do you mean? Which functions do you mean? What do you mean by "whenever Custom changes"? The situation would be a much bigger mess than I thought when I wrote the quote you are responding too. The user _did_ customize `custom-file' through Custom. But we actually just wrote a setq form into .emacs. Should we now _consider_ `custom-file' to be customized through Custom? Since the user customized it through Custom, he probably would believe that things that normally work when setting things through Custom work for custom-file too. But then you have to set various properties like custom-saved and others. (That would be done by these named functions I referred to, which could be newly written named functions. If Custom started adding new properties to the symbol-plist, which has happened in the past and may happen in the future, these functions would need to be updated.) But the situation is worse than that. If you do not set these properties, you get into various anomalies, like the "State" message in a Custom buffer saying that `custom-file' was changed outside Custom, which could confuse the user. If you do set them, you get other anomalies, because then Custom believes that `custom-file' is defined in the custom file, whereas it is not. It is a mess and there is no need whatsoever to get into that mess. But I believe all of this is really a moot point, because I do not believe that Custom should write anything into .emacs, unless it actually allowed the user to specify different custom files for different Emacs versions (because that is the main reason that the custom file feature exists in the first place) and wrote a `cond' form into .emacs. Sincerely, Luc.