Re: Idea for determining what users use

[David.Kastrup@t-online.de (David Kastrup)]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> We have no good way to determine if anyone still uses a feature.
> Maybe we can create one.
> 
> Imagine a function called note-feature-used.
> You call it like this:  (note-feature-used 'foo "Foo").
> The first time you call it, it sends mail to
> emacs-features-used@gnu.org with subject Foo,
> asking you for permission to send it,
> and it records (setq foo t) in your .emacs file.
> If you call it again, it does nothing.
> 
> We could put these calls into various files and functions in order
> to find out (after the next release) whether anyone uses them.

Quite dangerous since it could be felt as a sort of privacy issue.
It must be carefully voiced.

Something like

Feature foo has been deprecated (? for info).  Complain (y/n)?

and then offer the usual "use it this time/don't ask again" dialog we
use for disabled commands.

After a while, one can remove the feature/command and instead do

Feature foo has been removed (? for info).  Complain (y/n)?

The info should explain why something is removed/deprecated and what
to use instead.  The mail buffer should be set up in a way that the
user can add his own comments and send, not just do this silently.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum