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: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 14:15:12 +0000 Message-ID: <87h9xm3v67.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1417011358 17964 80.91.229.3 (26 Nov 2014 14:15:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 14:15:58 +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 Wed Nov 26 15:15:52 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 1XtdNj-0004us-Og for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 26 Nov 2014 15:15:47 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:34101 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtdNj-0002ul-0I for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 26 Nov 2014 09:15:47 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46046) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtdNH-0002ue-Ri for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 26 Nov 2014 09:15:24 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtdNC-0000wu-PP for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 26 Nov 2014 09:15:19 -0500 Original-Received: from cheviot22.ncl.ac.uk ([128.240.234.22]:58304) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtdNC-0000wq-Ic for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 26 Nov 2014 09:15:14 -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 1XtdNB-0003IQ-Ev; Wed, 26 Nov 2014 14:15:13 +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 1XtdNA-0007GJ-Nz; Wed, 26 Nov 2014 14:15:12 +0000 In-Reply-To: (Alexandre Oberlin's message of "Tue, 25 Nov 2014 16:07:39 +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:101221 Archived-At: Alexandre Oberlin writes: > Thanks Phillip for your answer. > > You wrote: >>> 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. > > So the toggling functions have been broken too!? Anyway I=E2=80=99d say m= ost such > users don=E2=80=99t write, they just click/touch. Yes. > Now do you mean that for emacs developers too, unlearned user mistakes dr= iven > interfacing has become the guiding principle? I use *n?x systems because I > preferred to learn a few things from the start and then know what happens= and > get what I want. Now this is more and more difficult as the (supposed) av= erage > behaviour of occasional users rules (and constantly changes, as well as i= ts > perception by new developers). Users who need to work productively are ge= tting > nervous because they don=E2=80=99t have time to spend playing with their > configurations at each new release of any piece of software. Breaking bac= kward > compatibility had always been a NONO, even at Microsoft. Indeed, breaking backward-compatible is a negative thing. But, then, fixing a bug also breaks backward-compatibility if your code depends on it. This is somewhere in between. I certainly used to do (add-hook 'blah 'wanted-mode) which generally works. Then I found out about=20 (add-hook 'blah 'turn-on-wanted-mode) which works better. But many people did the former. Now it works correctly as well. I agree with you, that breaking backward-compatible is a bad thing. But there are gains and losses to be weighed here. As Stefan says, they thought about this before hand, and they looked to see how many cases of "accidental nil" vs "deliberate nil" there are in practice. I understand your irritation; but I don't understand why you can't seem to see that it's a compromise that advantages many. Phil