RE: [External] : Re: Propose to add setup-wizard.el to ELPA

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> Custom is an unfinished system,

Like everything in Emacs.  That's the nature of
user-developed free software.

And yes, Custom has a lot of room for improvement.
It's too bad that it's essentially had only one
developer who put energy into it, and that ended
years ago.  Volunteers are surely welcome.

It likely doesn't help if good Emacs developers
don't, themselves, use it.

> it's code is not easy to understand,

That much is true, unfortunately.  The customize
code needs more love - definitely.

> and it does not integrate with the rest of Emacs
> well,

Not clear what you mean by that.  I can guess a
few ways in which there might be room for better
"integration", for users, but dunno what you had
in mind by that term (aside from your next point).

> it especially does not play well with configuring
> things from init.el file.

This is 100% (or maybe 99%) the fault of Emacs
letting Customize read and write to user init
files, and doing that as the default behavior,
no less.

The default behavior (maybe the only allowed
behavior) should be for it to use `custom-file'.
Emacs should really discourage (or prevent)
letting Customize fiddle with user init files.
Code you write and code Customize writes should
be kept separate.

I, and I think some others, have suggested this
more than once, in vain.  Aiming for that would
be a start, even if no volunteers to implement
that goal were to come forward at first.
  
> Until it is more polished, I would be hesitant
> to recommended it to newcomers, over doing a
> couple of setq's.

You should instead be hesitant to recommend
setq for user options.

https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/102/advantages-of-setting-variables-with-setq-instead-of-custom-el/106#106