Re: using use-package

[Ian Zimmerman <itz@buug.org>]

On 2015-08-05 09:34 -0700, Rusi wrote:

> > That way lies Ubuntu - an ancient African word meaning "much simpler
> > than the simplest possible".

> I get that you are making a joke... But I dont get it :-(
> Is it that...
>  - Using use-package oversimplifies?

Maybe not right now, but promoting it as the one and true way of
configuring emacs would eventually lead to a state where some things are
no longer possible, or (and this is the Ubuntu way) they are _officially
supposed_ to be possible, but because hardly anybody does them they're
untested and unsupported by the developers.

Emacs is full of interdependencies by its nature.  Things like adaptive
fill, global font lock, imenu, work slightly differently in each mode
depending on configuration of that mode.  There's a plausible argument
that this is a misdesign, but it is far too deeply ingrained now to
change, IMO.

Also the use of dynamic scoping plays into this.  Much code was
intentionally written so that the way to change its behavior (sometimes
the only way) is to let-bind a global variable.  case-fold is a classic
example.  It is not clear to me how partitioning configuration into
packages can deal with this.

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