From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: RE: Pretest Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:11:11 -0700 Message-ID: References: <87fwjsqs9l.fsf@stupidchicken.com><87obyf44kd.fsf@stupidchicken.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1316571359 25036 80.91.229.12 (21 Sep 2011 02:15:59 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:15:59 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "'Stefan Monnier'" , "'Chong Yidong'" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Sep 21 04:15:55 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1R6CLn-00086M-5R for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 21 Sep 2011 04:15:51 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:43302 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1R6CLm-0003h8-Iw for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:15:50 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:46227) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1R6CLj-0003gs-5h for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:15:48 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1R6CLh-00056f-FQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:15:47 -0400 Original-Received: from acsinet15.oracle.com ([141.146.126.227]:17613) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1R6CLh-00056X-4f for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:15:45 -0400 Original-Received: from acsinet21.oracle.com (acsinet21.oracle.com [141.146.126.237]) by acsinet15.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.4/Switch-3.4.4) with ESMTP id p8L2F88k016185 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:15:43 GMT Original-Received: from acsmt357.oracle.com (acsmt357.oracle.com [141.146.40.157]) by acsinet21.oracle.com (8.14.4+Sun/8.14.4) with ESMTP id p8L2BHxd007141 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:11:17 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt118.oracle.com (abhmt118.oracle.com [141.146.116.70]) by acsmt357.oracle.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id p8L2BB2x001693; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:11:11 -0500 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/10.159.58.151) by default (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:11:11 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 In-Reply-To: Thread-Index: Acx3/aJIOuOZZoF0THywPmB00Co6sAAA7ovQ X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6109 X-Source-IP: acsinet21.oracle.com [141.146.126.237] X-Auth-Type: Internal IP X-CT-RefId: str=0001.0A090208.4E7948CF.0095:SCFMA922111,ss=1,re=-4.000,fgs=0 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 1) X-Received-From: 141.146.126.227 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:144134 Archived-At: > >> After Martin relentlessly and carefully worked out the > >> bugs from his humongous, many-faceted, and detailed > >> buffer-display changes, you suddenly changed it all again > >> (recently). And during a feature freeze, no less. Even > >> Martin (our resident window/buffer-display expert) has > >> admitted that he does not yet understand the new code. > >> Does that count as "something coming up"? > > > > No. > > Just to put some argument behind it: the new code that > replaces Martin's is not humongous, not many-faceted, ... > instead it's a fairly small change, localized change, with > a reasonably clear "backward compatibility argument". However simple, it still needs time for testing - pre-pretesting. > That's why we haven't seen too many bug reports since this > new scheme has been installed. Is it a joke? I've had the new changes for a little over a week now, in Emacs Windows builds. As soon as the changes were in, things were broken for me and I filed a bug. It's not surprising that few bugs have been reported yet - the change has not been in the code for long. Reminds me of the elementary school teacher who said, "Take-out-your-books--take-out-your-books--take-out-your-books. That's 3 times and your books aren't out yet!" > Sadly, it goes much less far than Martin's change, so some of the more > interesting developments end up postponed to 24.2. I have no problem with that. My main concerns with this, or Martin's, or any other such changes are (a) backward compatibility, (b) conceptual simplicity, (c) usage simplicity, and (d) covering the use cases I use (hey, I'm one user) as well as before (that is, once I've learned how to go beyond backward compatibility and use the new system). Martin's stuff never reached the point where people understood it enough to explain it in simple terms. But it at least had the advantage (for me) that it worked (for my use cases). I know that he spent a _lot_ of time fixing bugs to cover various use cases: mine and those of others. I have nothing against a new approach, if it covers the various use cases and it is reasonably simple to use. But I think more than a couple of weeks should pass before you declare it ready for pretest. Presumably the reason (or at least one of the main reasons) for all these changes is to simply the interface for users. And perhaps to cover more use cases (dunno). I'm unaware of any users having actually asked for this (solution looking for a problem?), but that's OK if it is really an improvement. On the other hand, if it doesn't match the old system in simplicity and use-case coverage, then I don't see the point. People need time to judge.