Re: bug#19068: Mail file vars aren't derived from customized message-directory

[Kelly Dean <kelly@prtime.org>]

Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> That's the wrong way to set variables that have other variables that
> depend on them.
>
> Instead say
>
> (setq message-directory "~/mail/")
> (require 'message)

And what if you happened to previously require something that already required message? Do you want to require users to always put all their «setq»s before all their «require»s, just in case?

Or what if you were already using message mode with the default directory settings, but then you decided to change it and customize message-directory using Emacs's customization feature, and read the help page that says ⌜Directory from which all other mail file variables are derived⌝? Would you not expect that when you change a top-level directory, the directories under it remain under it? After all, that's the way «mv» behaves.