Re: Proposal: emacs -Q option

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
> You mean it's better to never show the option (even if the user does have
> the above things in his .emacs) or to always show it?

I think it's better to always show all options (except perhaps
some system-dependent options filtered out at compile-time like
--no-shared-memory as you suggested earlier).

The --help message is needed for users to quickly look at all
options before starting Emacs, and fastest way to show it to the user
is as a static text.  After Emacs is started the user can consult
the Emacs manual for full descriptions of all options.

> To me the whole point of making it dynamic is that it can take into account
> local config changes (in site-start.el and in .emacs).
> Of course when called with `-q --help' it might return something different
> than with just `--help', but that's the whole point.

Your proposal looks like a new Emacs command that will collect a list
of available options from different Emacs packages and show it to the
user in an Emacs buffer or to stderr when called in batch mode.  This
might produce more correct option list but it is much slower than
current static --help message and should not replace it.

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