No Wayman <iarchivedmywholelife@gmail.com> writes:

> In the meantime, I'd like to be able to offer the users of my package
> a solution if they hit this bug.  This seems to work for me, but I
> haven't written much, and am a bit leery of, elisp advice.  Would you
> consider this an appropriate workaround?:

Mostly yes, but IMO it's kind of over-engineered.  I would do just:

    (defun workaround/describe-variable-print-bug (original-function &rest args)
      "Put temp buffer in emacs-lisp-mode before `pp-buffer'.
    https://debbugs.gnu.org/39805#8"
      (advice-add #'pp-buffer :before #'emacs-lisp-mode)
      (unwind-protect
          (apply original-function args)
        (advice-remove #'pp-buffer #'emacs-lisp-mode)))

    (when (= emacs-major-version 26) ;; Work around Bug#39805.
      (advice-add #'describe-variable :around
                  #'workaround/describe-variable-print-bug))