Re: Query re `format-mode-line'

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

>         Do only bug fixes go into minor version updates such as
>         21.4?  Or put another way, have there been no new functions
>         introduced into the Emacs that most people use since 2001?
>
>     Yes.
>
> Does this mean that adding new features "after the release" really
> means they won't be available until the next major release (circa
> 2048)? We and our great grandchildren will miss them. ;-)

Emacs 23 is the unicode2 branch.  It is being maintained in parallel
at the moment and kept in reasonable shape, and some stuff has been
merged into it that is not in Emacs 22 if I remember correctly.  When
Emacs 22 is out and reasonably debugged, so that we won't need more
22.x releases, the unicode branch will get merged to HEAD.  Then this
will get merged into the multi-tty branch, and when this seems
successful, the merge of multi-tty will go back into HEAD as well.

Both branches are in reasonable shape AFAIK.  When most of the merges
are through and it is clear whether we will release with multi-tty or
not, adding new features starts making sense again.  Those should,
however, be not too potentially destabilizing (like the lexical-let
branch, I would guess, or Emacs-bidi).

This is the idea of the next release after Emacs 22, and, considering
the state of affairs in the branches, it should not take much more
than half a year.  After all, the manual and code are in a good shape
with our current release, and the Emacs 23 changes are somewhat
localized.

Once unicode2 has become HEAD, there will be sense again in working
seriously on the Bidi branch.  However, it is not clear when that will
be fit for merging.

I don't see what you hope to accomplish by pressing for destabilizing
development right now with new features.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum