Re: Unreadable buffer names in Emacs 23.2

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

Android Eve <androidev@gmx.com> writes:

> Thank you, Tim. I did exactly as you suggested and it works very well.
> Modifying .emacs via the Options menu (which is a totally new concept
> to me...), resulted in appending the following 2 lines:
>
> (custom-set-faces
> '(default ((t (:inherit nil :stipple nil :background
> "Black" :foreground "LightGray" :inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-
> through nil :overline nil :underline nil :slant normal :weight
> normal :height 90 :width normal :foundry "outline" :family "Lucida
> Console")))))
>
> I must admit that although I can't live without Emacs, I find it
> frustrating to have to "fix" my .emacs every time I upgrade to a new
> version. Is there a way to create a .emacs that will never break?
> (i.e. forward-compatible)
>

Forward compatibility is pretty much impossible as you cannot predict
the future. However, the emacs dev team work pretty hard to keep
backwards compatibility. This can be very difficult due to the nature of
emacs and the extensive customization it supports. My suggestions would
be

1. Use customize as much as you can. As this provides a standard
framework for customizing everything, it also provides something which
the emacs devs can use to try and maintain backwards compatibility. I
switched to customize a few years back as I found it work far more
reliably than all my custom elisp code, which often broke on upgrade of
emacs. I still have some elisp for stuff not covered by custom, but it
is a lot less and a lot easier to maintain. 

2. Always read the NEWS and PROBLEMS file before upgrading. 99% of the
time, information in both files alert you to things you may have to
tweak in your .emacs and saves you a lot of time. 

3. Over a number of years, I've often found it beneficial to work with
emacs rather than against it. Initially, I cusotmized and tweaked stuff
all over the place, but then realised what I was doing was trying to
make emacs like other editors I was familiar with. This had two
disadvantages. Firstly, it created a level of maintenance that was a
pain and secondly, I often missed some of he real advantages of emacs. I
now tend to only customize things after I've used them for a while.
Frequently, I find the new or unfamiliar behaviour turns out to be much
better than what I had grown use to with other tools. Instead of trying
to make emacs like other things, I now wish other things were more like
emacs! 

HTH

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au