Re: Getting more info on a variable in Customize buffers

[Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu>]

Richard Stallman wrote:

   If specific :set and :get functions fail to handle custom-local-buffer,
   that is a bug.

They are _currently_ not really bugs (at least not user visible bugs),
since there currently are no situations where custom-local-buffer can
be meaningfully used.  From the moment we start using
custom-local-buffer they would become (user visible) bugs.

   We can fix these bugs at any time.

Yes, except that time spent doing that means less time spent working
toward a release.  We only have a motivation to spend time on that
_before_ rather than _after_ the release if we plan on using
`custom-local-buffer' meaningfully before the next release.

   Would you like to find some cases that fail, and fix them?

I could look at those defcustoms that I am very familiar with, but
that is a very small fraction of all defcustoms with :set functions
that are out there.  (Fortunately, :get functions appear to be very
rare.)  For many :set functions it may not be immediately obvious what
the best way to make them work buffer-locally is, and there are tons
of defcustoms with :set functions.

The only reason to worry about making :set and :get functions work
buffer locally now would be to allow `set-variable' to call the :set
functions buffer locally.  But if we try to do that _now_, the next
release will be full of newly introduced bugs, because we will not
be able to come even remotely close to adapt all :set functions.

The next release seems already remote enough that I do not believe
that we should delay it further by trying to change the behavior of
`set-variable' right now.

All of this is not a question about what should be done, but whether
it should be done for 21.4 or for 22.

Sincerely,

Luc.