Re: Default emacs init file location confusion

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

On January 8, 2020 10:17:21 AM GMT+02:00, Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> On Wed, 08 Jan 2020 09:22:12 +0200, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> said:
> 
>     Eli> Here's my proposal:
> 
> Eli>   . If neither the old nor the new (XDG compliant) directory
> exists, default to ~/.emacs.d (it will be created, as we did before)
>   Eli>   . If both the old and the new directory exist, use ~/.emacs.d
>     Eli>   . Otherwise use the XDG compliant directory
> 
> Eli> This will make the new XDG compliant directory an opt-in feature:
> Eli> users who want that will have to create ~/.config/emacs, move
> there
> Eli> the contents of ~/.emacs.d, and then delete the latter, in order
> to
>     Eli> have Emacs use the XDG convention.
> 
> Except that now the issue becomes "I created ~/.config/emacs, and
> emacs doesnʼt use it". 

Which is completely consistent with making this feature opt-in, don't you agree?  And NEWS will tell so.

>  hence Iʼd prefer:
> 
>        Use the XDG directory if it exists, but donʼt create
>        it. Otherwise, use ~/.emacs.d (and create it if necessary).

This is IMO a much more invasive change, and therefore inappropriate for the release branch.  The current code relies on user-emacs-directory to exist.  Lifting this restriction should be a separate change, and we should do it on master.

>  Eli> I don't like to pop up questions at startup, brcause users don't
> Eli> expect such questions, and because people who would like to keep
> their
> Eli> existing ~/.emacs.d and yet use ~/.config for other programs will
> need
>     Eli> to respond to this prompt every time they start Emacs.
> 
> I agree about the pop ups, but the prompt would only be if
> ~/.config/emacs existed, not ~/.config, so deleting it would stop the
> prompt.

The same people who won't know they should delete .emacs.d will also fail to know about deleting .config/emacs.