Re: Make all tree-sitter modes optional

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Eli.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 20:33:49 +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2023 17:57:15 +0000
> > Cc: juri@linkov.net, casouri@gmail.com, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca,
> >   larsi@gnus.org, theo@thornhill.no, jostein@secure.kjonigsen.net,
> >   emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>

[ .... ]

> This [severe inconvenience to users who wish to stop using a new
> feature] can happen with any new feature.  There's nothing we can do about
> this, ....

There is; we're competent hackers.

> .... so please just stop worrying about it.

I continue to be unhappy about the state of this change.  If we are going
to insist on users restarting Emacs simply to remove three entries from
auto-mode-alist, we should at least ensure that such restarting will
work.  In the current NEWS, the directions are incomplete and misleading.

I propose the following to correct this; it adds text to what is
currently there rather than replacing it, as you requested a couple of
days ago:


diff --git a/etc/NEWS b/etc/NEWS
index 2d15e39036a..dbe6517e78f 100644
--- a/etc/NEWS
+++ b/etc/NEWS
@@ -3239,10 +3239,13 @@ for which a "built-in" mode would be turned on.  For example:
 
     (add-to-list 'major-mode-remap-alist '(ruby-mode . ruby-ts-mode))
 
-If you try these modes and don't like them, you can go back to the
-"built-in" modes by restarting Emacs.  But please tell us why you
-didn't like the tree-sitter based modes, so that we could try
-improving them.
+Loading one of the new modes amends 'auto-mode-alist' such that
+visiting the same type of file in the future will continue to use that
+new mode.  If you try these modes and don't like them, you can go back
+to the "built-in" modes by restarting Emacs, but first, if you use
+desktop-save-mode, make sure no buffers using the new mode will get
+entered into your .desktop file.  But please tell us why you didn't
+like the tree-sitter based modes, so that we can try improving them.
 
 Each major mode based on tree-sitter needs a language grammar library,
 usually named "libtree-sitter-LANG.so" ("libtree-sitter-LANG.dll" on


-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).