From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>
To: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: custom-set-variables considered harmful
Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2017 13:10:11 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <jwvbmkinf9p.fsf-monnier+emacs@gnu.org> (raw)
I keep seeing people copy and pasting part of calls to
custom-set-variables, and getting all confused about it.
I think we should stop using it. Here's a proposal for that.
When writing customizations, instead of writing
(custom-set-variables
;; Big ugly warning which doesn't help enough.
'(VAR1 VAL1)
'(VAR2 VAL2 nil '(REQUEST) COMMENT)
'(VAR3 VAL3)
...)
we write
(autogenerated-custom-settings
;; Big warning, still, but less important.
(setq VAR1 VAL1)
(require 'REQUEST)
(customize-set-variable VAR2 VAL2 COMMENT)
(customize-set-variable VAR3 VAL3)
...)
where `autogenerated-custom-settings` is a macro which turns that call
back into the form expected by custom-set-variables.
The idea is basically to use a syntax which happens to look close to
what you'd write by hand if you weren't using Customize, so that users
who copy&paste snippets of code end up copying more or less valid code,
instead of copying "code" like
'(toto 2)
and then be surprised that it doesn't do anything.
[ The difference between VAR1 and VAR3 is that VAR1 doesn't have
a setter. I guess in some cases we should emit `(setq-default VAR VAL)`
also. ]
One question, tho: could someone explain to me what the NOW is used
for, really? I've read the docstrings, comments, and the code that
seems related to it, and I have some idea of what it supposedly does,
but I don't have a clear idea of a scenario where it's used.
Stefan
next reply other threads:[~2017-11-04 17:10 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 38+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2017-11-04 17:10 Stefan Monnier [this message]
2017-11-06 9:02 ` custom-set-variables considered harmful Philippe Vaucher
2017-11-06 12:19 ` Clément Pit-Claudel
2017-11-06 16:36 ` raman
2017-11-07 19:53 ` Stefan Monnier
2017-11-08 10:06 ` Vivek Dasmohapatra
2017-11-08 13:38 ` Stefan Monnier
2017-11-08 14:23 ` Vivek Dasmohapatra
2017-11-08 15:17 ` Stefan Monnier
2017-11-08 15:34 ` Vivek Dasmohapatra
2017-11-13 16:26 ` Stefan Monnier
2017-11-24 7:04 ` Elias Mårtenson
2017-11-24 7:16 ` Stefan Monnier
2017-11-24 17:37 ` Clément Pit-Claudel
2017-11-24 17:56 ` Stefan Monnier
2017-11-26 12:15 ` Elias Mårtenson
2017-11-26 16:30 ` Drew Adams
2017-11-28 14:12 ` Philippe Vaucher
2017-11-28 16:50 ` John Wiegley
2017-12-01 9:44 ` Philippe Vaucher
2017-11-29 3:36 ` Elias Mårtenson
2017-11-29 15:00 ` Stefan Monnier
2017-11-29 15:03 ` Drew Adams
2017-12-01 20:42 ` Robert Weiner
2017-12-02 0:10 ` Richard Stallman
2017-12-02 1:58 ` Drew Adams
2017-12-02 5:56 ` Teemu Likonen
2017-11-29 16:35 ` Elias Mårtenson
2017-11-29 19:57 ` Scott Randby
2017-11-29 22:08 ` Stefan Monnier
2017-11-30 0:40 ` Scott Randby
2017-12-01 9:51 ` Philippe Vaucher
2017-12-04 13:48 ` Stefan Monnier
2017-12-04 15:36 ` Eli Zaretskii
2017-12-04 16:05 ` Robert Weiner
2017-12-04 23:50 ` Richard Stallman
2017-12-05 1:45 ` Stefan Monnier
2017-11-23 20:12 ` John Wiegley
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