Re: (emacs)Antinews

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

Andreas Schwab wrote:

   Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu> writes:

   > Its primary purpose is to provide accurate and useful info about
   > differences with earlier Emacs versions.

   That's what NEWS is about.

   Andreas.

The purpose of NEWS is different: it tells a user who starts out using
a new Emacs version what is new in that version.  It also aims to be
rather comprehensive (it is huge).

As I understand it, the purpose of antinews is to point out to a user
of the present version what the main difficulties could be if he has
to use an older version.  (_Having_ to use an older version is very
common for several reasons: you might not be using your own computer
and the Emacs version on that computer may not be the latest version,
or you might have to use some package that does not work with the
latest version, because of backward incompatible changes).

For instance, the current Elisp manual says about naming a keyboard macro:

  If you wish to save a keyboard macro for later use, you can give it a
  name using `C-x C-k n' (`kmacro-name-last-macro').

It is impossible to figure out from NEWS that you have to do
`M-x name-last-kbd-macro' in 21.4 and earlier, because 
`C- h n C-s name-last' fails.

Sincerely,

Luc.