Re: Some developement questions

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: hw <hw@adminart.net>
> Cc: Ergus <spacibba@aol.com>,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2018 14:34:26 +0200
> 
> > Exactly my point: you have just enumerated at least 3 different
> > classes of users, and the solution is different for every one of them.
> > Finding a way of being friendly to each class is the problem to solve.
> > One possible solution could be groups of Custom options that are
> > likely to be relevant to each class of users, and writing
> > customization commands that target each class.  Patches are welcome.
> 
> How about including a number of ~/.emacs files, containing options
> supposed to make things easier for a class of users --- or include
> groups of ~/.emacs files so that for any given class, there can be many
> configurations to pick from within a group?

IMO, that would be too radical, because in an init file each option
already has a value.  So we will have to decide for the users whether
or not they want certain options to have certain values.  That might
work for boolean options, but many options in Emacs are non-boolean.
As just one example, consider display-line-numbers-mode -- it has
between 3 and 4 different styles, so which one would you put in the
.emacs?

By contrast, by creating a group of options, we don't need to decide
for the users what values of which options they like; we just make the
options we think are relevant for them more easily discoverable.

I also think that browsing through a Custom buffer is more
user-friendly than telling the users to find their way through several
files.

Thanks.