From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Option to not automatically customize-save-variable `package-selected-packages' Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 23:00:33 +0200 Message-ID: <834md5u426.fsf@gnu.org> References: <56C43D17.7010009@alice.it> <831t8aufoe.fsf@gnu.org> <8737sp51vx.fsf@gmail.com> <83fuwpubpn.fsf@gnu.org> <87egc9ahav.fsf@fastmail.fm> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1455829249 9325 80.91.229.3 (18 Feb 2016 21:00:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 21:00:49 +0000 (UTC) Cc: johnw@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, bruce.connor.am@gmail.com, angelo.graziosi@alice.it To: Joost Kremers Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Feb 18 22:00:48 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aWVgs-0003Zl-6j for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 18 Feb 2016 22:00:46 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:45521 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aWVgr-0006oK-Ow for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 18 Feb 2016 16:00:45 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:53677) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aWVgV-0006nw-31 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 18 Feb 2016 16:00:24 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aWVgT-0001aX-OK for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 18 Feb 2016 16:00:23 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:56031) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aWVgQ-0001ZG-0D; Thu, 18 Feb 2016 16:00:18 -0500 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.246.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.246]:2148 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:128) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1aWVgP-00033Z-0u; Thu, 18 Feb 2016 16:00:17 -0500 In-reply-to: <87egc9ahav.fsf@fastmail.fm> (message from Joost Kremers on Thu, 18 Feb 2016 21:34:48 +0100) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:200159 Archived-At: > From: Joost Kremers > Cc: Artur Malabarba , johnw@gnu.org, angelo.graziosi@alice.it, emacs-devel@gnu.org > Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 21:34:48 +0100 > > On Thu, Feb 18 2016, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > I see no fundamental difference > > between saving the value of a defcustom and saving the list of > > packages the user decided to install. > > I think the main difference is that as a user, I can decide *not* to use > Customize to set a particular defcustom. I can use a setq in my init > file instead. Can't you do the same with the list of installed packages? > I can see the logic behind saving the list of user-installed packages in > custom-set-variables, but IMHO the user should have the option of > specifying a different location for saving this info. Sorry, but I still don't see why. You say that, for certain reasons, the customizations made by package.el are "special", and due to that you'd like them to be separate. But how is this different from any other particular customization that just happens to be special in some way? I can easily imagine a use case where it is inconvenient to have a particular defcustom saved together with the others, for whatever reasons. And yet we don't provide any way of doing that, within the framework of saving customizations via Custom. In effect, we say to such users: do it yourself in Lisp. Which IMO is a reasonable response, since users who have such special situations are most probably capable enough to write their initializations in Lisp, whereas Custom is for newbies who can't. Why cannot the same reasoning be applied to the issue at hand?