From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Multi-tty design (Re: Reordering etc/NEWS) Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 22:24:10 +0200 Message-ID: <85lkfrf91x.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> References: <4646F1C6.4020709@lorentey.hu> <851whkrioc.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <85hcqg4qxs.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <85d5144p78.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <200705131822.l4DIMtXt019128@oogie-boogie.ics.uci.edu> <85abw8o51q.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <464835DE.3020007@lorentey.hu> <86y7jrr8rx.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz> <86lkfrr3s6.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz> <86d513r2i1.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz> <861whjr097.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz> <200705141648.l4EGmmvW007675@oogie-boogie.ics.uci.edu> <85bqgngvos.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <200705141819.l4EIJLPr009832@oogie-boogie.ics.uci.edu> <85ps53fcm0.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <200705142004.l4EK4DHg012188@oogie-boogie.ics.uci.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1179174261 2098 80.91.229.12 (14 May 2007 20:24:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 20:24:21 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Andreas Schwab , Karoly Lorentey , joakim@verona.se, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Dan Nicolaescu Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon May 14 22:24:18 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Hnh5a-00035q-Ct for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 14 May 2007 22:24:14 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HnhDN-0003T0-Ct for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 14 May 2007 16:32:17 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1HnhDJ-0003PM-Bd for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 14 May 2007 16:32:13 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1HnhDI-0003NH-FP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 14 May 2007 16:32:12 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HnhDI-0003NA-D0 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 14 May 2007 16:32:12 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-in-07.arcor-online.net ([151.189.21.47]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Hnh5U-0003xo-ET for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 14 May 2007 16:24:08 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-in-01-z2.arcor-online.net (mail-in-01-z2.arcor-online.net [151.189.8.13]) by mail-in-07.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id C74E424B79A; Mon, 14 May 2007 22:24:06 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from mail-in-10.arcor-online.net (mail-in-10.arcor-online.net [151.189.21.50]) by mail-in-01-z2.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id B6E6712DF92; Mon, 14 May 2007 22:24:06 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from lola.goethe.zz (dslb-084-061-102-247.pools.arcor-ip.net [84.61.102.247]) by mail-in-10.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 940202351A6; Mon, 14 May 2007 22:24:06 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: by lola.goethe.zz (Postfix, from userid 1002) id 9C5C01C0C945; Mon, 14 May 2007 22:24:10 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: <200705142004.l4EK4DHg012188@oogie-boogie.ics.uci.edu> (Dan Nicolaescu's message of "Mon\, 14 May 2007 13\:04\:13 -0700") User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/23.0.51 (gnu/linux) X-detected-kernel: Linux 2.4-2.6 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: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:71065 Archived-At: Dan Nicolaescu writes: > David Kastrup writes: > > So reverting the change is not the right solution. Personally, > > I think the arguments of getenv and setenv are completely messed > > up. [You deleted the whole discussion and proposal for making a more stable solution] > It is at this point. You changed the code from working into > non-working, Wrong. I changed code from _not_ working as advertised to _working_ as advertised. Which means that a bug in a _caller_ now gets exposed. You think that the right solution for the problem is hiding the bug in the caller again, making the function do something different from what the documentation claims it does. > and it's already stopping other people from testing it. There was > already a but report about this. > > You can improve it later if you want it, but now it does not work, > and that reflects badly on the all the effort that was put into > multi-tty. I don't think that papering over bugs is what is required now. If the design does not hold up to the functions actually doing what the documentation claims they do, it is broken. Randomly making functions do something different from their documentation until the stuff happens not to break immediately in obvious ways is _not_ the right solution. The right solution is to find the caller that passes a non-nil value for FRAME into getenv with the wrong expectations, and _fix_ the _caller_ rather than _break_ getenv's intended behavior and _ignore_ its FRAME parameter in order to hide the bug. Either that, or decide that the whole idea of having getenv/setenv with a FRAME parameter is broken. I'd lean towards the latter. But in either case, we need to be consistent about it and follow through in both documentation and implementation. If the design is unsound, we need to rip it out completely, not just sabotage it at the points where the problems show. I'll try to see whether I can find the problematic caller. But I certainly hope that this "paper over it and hope nobody notices it" stance does not pervade multi-tty, and that the _bug_ which I fixed was not intentional but an oversight. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum