Re: process-attributes patch

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:
>>> (4) Rename Fsystem_process_attributes to Fprocess_attributes, and have
>>> it call process_pid to convert a process object to a pid.
>
>> These are already documented in the ELisp reference manual, so the
>> docs need to be updated as well.
>
> I generally agree with the change, but I think it comes a bit late.
> Can't it wait for 23.2?

The only problem with delaying name changes past a release is that
user code starts to use old name.

The only potential problem I see with this change is compilation
errors on DOS and W32, but anything there would pretty much be trivial
to fix for someone who actually has those platforms.  There doesn't
seem all that much scope for subtle problems.  [Eli found one problem;
the other thing which may be an issue is using pid_t in the "no
subprocesses" branch of the ifdef, but that's easy enough to fix.]

Anyway, I'd rather just do it and fix any issues that arise, but it's
not my decision.

If it is deemed to dangerous for this release, we could add a
(defalias 'process-attributes 'system-process-attributes) and update
the documentation to use that name, so that any user code uses the new
name.

-Miles

-- 
"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that
 you do it."  Mahatma Gandhi