From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk (Phillip Lord) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Why is it not possible to use "nil" any more in init files ? Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 13:50:22 +0000 Message-ID: <878uizxuch.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1416923527 5631 80.91.229.3 (25 Nov 2014 13:52:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 13:52:07 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org To: Alexandre Oberlin Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Nov 25 14:52:01 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGX6-0000RG-12 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 14:51:56 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57330 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGX5-00083e-Fo for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:51:55 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:45472) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGVh-0006vw-Cl for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:50:33 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGVc-0000ZL-CX for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:50:29 -0500 Original-Received: from cheviot22.ncl.ac.uk ([128.240.234.22]:39460) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGVc-0000ZC-6B for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:50:24 -0500 Original-Received: from smtpauth-vm.ncl.ac.uk ([10.8.233.129] helo=smtpauth.ncl.ac.uk) by cheviot22.ncl.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGVb-0003nz-DW; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 13:50:23 +0000 Original-Received: from jangai.ncl.ac.uk ([10.66.67.223] helo=localhost) by smtpauth.ncl.ac.uk with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGVb-0004iI-3D; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 13:50:23 +0000 In-Reply-To: (Alexandre Oberlin's message of "Tue, 25 Nov 2014 14:19:34 +0100") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 128.240.234.22 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:101160 Archived-At: Clearly, if the interface has changed it runs the risk of breaking some statements which were previously fulfilling the programmers intent. This, of course, is irritating for those affected, but that doesn't make it wrong. >From my perspective, most people who write (hated-mode nil) are likely to be able to work out what is happening, while someone who accidentally writes (wanted-mode) and later (wanted-mode) has a more pernicuous problem. I always used (hated-mode 0) which seems to be more intuitive than passing nil. Perhaps this is why the change did not irritate me. Alexandre Oberlin writes: > Thanks Stefan for this explanation. So IIUC that trick broke some correct > .emacs in order to magically fix some broken ones? > > Alexandre > > > On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 15:37:04 +0100, Stefan Monnier > wrote: > >>> I know that departing from proven approaches for no sensible reason is top >>> of the art but is there any kind of other rationale to make the thing not >>> backward-compatible? >> >> Of course, there's a reason: All minor modes since Emacs-23 (IIRC) >> should turn themselves ON when called with a nil argument, so you don't >> need turn-on-FOO-mode and you can just say: >> >> (add-hook 'bar-mode-hook 'foo-mode) >> >> The better part of this incompatible change is that it silently *fixed* >> many people's .emacs since many people already used: >> >> (add-hook 'bar-mode-hook 'foo-mode) >> >> without realizing that this could actually turn the mode OFF in >> some cases. >> >> >> Stefan >> >> > > > -- > > -- Phillip Lord, Phone: +44 (0) 191 208 7827 Lecturer in Bioinformatics, Email: phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk School of Computing Science, http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/phillip.lord Room 914 Claremont Tower, skype: russet_apples Newcastle University, twitter: phillord NE1 7RU