Re: Propose to add setup-wizard.el to ELPA

[Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com>]

> On Jan 2, 2022, at 12:07 AM, Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Keybinding settings and the rest.
> 
> You can't use `setq' to customize key definitions either, right?

My point is that all configurations would be in one commented block of code, instead of separated into different places.

> 
>> Setup wizard produces some code, the user can modify them and put them
>> in init.el. They can later modify or even delete them as then see
>> fit. It’s flexible, straightforward, simple. Why do we have to involve
>> custom and all its machinery?
> 
> Because new users tend to not understand Emacs Lisp, so any future
> customization they do will necessarily be through custom.
> 
> And please don't say they "should" learn Emacs Lisp -- some people may
> find that enjoyable but lack the time, and some others may simply not
> want to at all.  Asking people to learn Emacs Lisp to make future
> customizations is simply unacceptable as part of a setup guide for _new_
> users.

Maybe that’s true for some users. I had my fair share of struggle and confusion with custom when I started using Emacs. IME a few lines of setq, global-set-key and xxx-mode are simpler and more predicable than custom. Neither of us has surveyed enough number of new Emacs users, so I don’t think we can make definitive claims. For example, I don’t think it is unacceptable to expect a user to understand what does setq, global-set-key or xxx-mode means.

> 
>> If we use custom, the key binding part is in somewhere in init.el, the
>> rest are blended together with other random configurations in either
>> custom file or the custom-save-varaible form in init.el. The custom
>> part has to be changed through Customize (the comment says users
>> shouldn’t modify the form by hand, and if they do, custom restores the
>> change anyway).
> 
> Customize will find the form, no matter where it actually is in init.el.
> Alternatively, you could set up a custom file.

It is hard for the user to find them. Plus other problems with custom and Customize described above that you don’t seem to mind. Aren’t they confusing for even a not-so-new user? They surely confused and annoyed me for a long time back then.

Yuan