Re: Default emacs init file location confusion

[Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com>]

>>>>> On Wed, 8 Jan 2020 13:33:20 +0800, Elias Mårtenson <lokedhs@gmail.com> said:
    Elias> Having thought about it some more, I came up with this proposal: Emacs
    Elias> could check if both directories exist, and if so, provide an interactive
    Elias> choice for the user to pick which one to use. If the user don't want to
    Elias> have to answer this question every time Emacs starts up, they can delete
    Elias> one of the directories.

That seems like the worst of both worlds. Iʼd say the principle of
least surprise says that emacs should prefer ~/.emacs.d if neither of
two directories exist (which would end up creating it), and prefer
~/.config/emacs if that exists (but not create it), which allows
people who want to use the xdg stuff to do so easily. Concretely:

diff --git a/lisp/startup.el b/lisp/startup.el
index 04a37bf59e..ebf9d33a97 100644
--- a/lisp/startup.el
+++ b/lisp/startup.el
@@ -497,28 +497,20 @@ startup--xdg-config-default
 (defvar startup--xdg-config-home-emacs)
 
 ;; Return the name of the init file directory for Emacs, assuming
-;; XDG-DIR is the XDG location and USER-NAME is the user name.
-;; If USER-NAME is nil or "", use the current user.
-;; Prefer the XDG location unless it does does not exist and the
-;; .emacs.d location does exist.
+;; XDG-DIR is the XDG location and USER-NAME is the user name.  If
+;; USER-NAME is nil or "", use the current user.  Prefer the XDG
+;; location unless it does not exist, in which case we prefer the
+;; .emacs.d location (even if it does not exist)
 (defun startup--xdg-or-homedot (xdg-dir user-name)
+  (let ((user-name (if (and user-name (not (string-equal user-name "")))
+                       user-name
+                     init-file-user)))
   (if (file-exists-p xdg-dir)
       xdg-dir
-    (let ((emacs-d-dir (concat "~" user-name
-			       (if (eq system-type 'ms-dos)
-				   "/_emacs.d/"
-				 "/.emacs.d/"))))
-      (if (or (file-exists-p emacs-d-dir)
-	      (if (eq system-type 'windows-nt)
-                  (if (file-directory-p (concat "~" user-name))
-                      (directory-files (concat "~" user-name) nil
-                                       "\\`[._]emacs\\(\\.elc?\\)?\\'"))
-		(file-exists-p (concat "~" init-file-user
-				       (if (eq system-type 'ms-dos)
-					   "/_emacs"
-					 "/.emacs")))))
-	  emacs-d-dir
-	xdg-dir))))
+    (concat "~" user-name
+            (if (eq system-type 'ms-dos)
+                "/_emacs.d/"
+              "/.emacs.d/")))))
 
 (defun normal-top-level ()
   "Emacs calls this function when it first starts up.