From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: defcustom: changing from defvar - order of execution Date: Sat, 07 May 2005 11:56:22 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico Message-ID: <87ekcjf36b.fsf-monnier+gnu.emacs.help@gnu.org> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1115482706 15647 80.91.229.2 (7 May 2005 16:18:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 16:18:26 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat May 07 18:18:25 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DURzl-00080c-F1 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 07 May 2005 18:17:38 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DUS7i-0007ub-FW for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 07 May 2005 12:25:50 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nf3.bellglobal.com!nf1.bellglobal.com!nf2.bellglobal.com!news20.bellglobal.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:U95hc6T/zYUKCk/1OXDFHIWm4T4= Original-Lines: 40 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.71.33.17 Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@sympatico.ca Original-X-Trace: news20.bellglobal.com 1115481382 67.71.33.17 (Sat, 07 May 2005 11:56:22 EDT) Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 07 May 2005 11:56:22 EDT Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:130751 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:26405 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:26405 >> I see things like this fairly commonly, at the top level of the standard >> Emacs libraries: > All these examples don't seem relevant since nowhere is it > suggested to the user to load the library in her .emacs. > Fair enough. But if a user does end up loading such a library during startup > (i.e. via .emacs) - whether by autoload or explicit load, the problem > arises, no? Could be, but I haven't seen it mentioned very often so it doesn't seem to be a common problem. Probably because it requires that people edit their .emacs by hand. I think there are 3 common safe scenarios: 1 - for everything relating to package FOO the user uses only Custom. 2 - for everything relating to package FOO the user doesn't use Custom and does all the configuration by hand in her .emacs. 3 - the user mixes up the two, but is aware that the relative position of the manual customizations and of the custom-set-variables is important. The only dangerous case is when the user mixes Custom and manual .emacs editing and doesn't pay attention to the relative position of the two styles of customization. > Granted, but what if a user wants to systematically do something at startup > that is provided by a library? Autoload etc. are fine, but what if the user > wants to call a library-defined function at each startup? Whether it's a > command to show daily appointments or whatever... Then she'll put it at the end of her .emacs because otherwise other customizations will be missing. Duh! Every once in a while someone comes here with exactly this problem, where she put her (desktop-load-default) at the beginning of her .emacs instead of putting it at the end. There's really not much we can do, and this problem is not directly related to Custom since it occurs with other things as well. Stefan