Re: best practices for implementing Emms configuration

[Yoni Rabkin <yoni@rabkins.net>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> Write the configuration to the user's ~/.emacs in the same manner as "
>> ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom." or ";; Added by
>> Package.el."  I'm not a huge fan of this option for the sole reason that
>> I don't appreciate packages automatically editing a file I manually
>> edit.
>
> AFAIK people who don't like/want Emacs to edit their manually-edited
> config file (such as myself) should and do set `custom-file` accordingly.

Over the years, the people I've helped set up Emms have almost always
been people who don't know elisp at all (makes sense when you think
about it). I think that the people who know about, and use `custom-file'
are also the people who don't need help setting up Emms.

However, that doesn't mean that you are wrong.

> So the better option seems very definitely to just save the config via
> Custom: that's what it's for.

I'll look at cus-edit.el to see how I can leverage Custom to do the
saving and loading for me outside of the customize interface. I don't
use it and am ignorant of it.

>> Write the configuration to ~/.emacs.d/emms/auto-config.el. Emms would
>> then look for that configuration file there during startup. This is
>> cleaner, and can have the benefit of Emms being configured without a
>> single line needing to be added by the user to their ~/.emacs.
>
> I personally dislike it when packages do such things because it's never
> completely clear how it interacts with the settings I put into my own
> manually-edited init file.
>
> Custom suffers from the same problems, of course, but once you've
> learned how it works, then this carries over to all the packages
> that use it.
>
>> I know that a bunch of packages store information in ~/.emacs.d/, just
>> as Emms does.  But is it acceptable practice to store configuration
>> there too?
>
> There's no law against it.  But as a user, I'd vote against it.

That vote is important. Thank you for taking the time and effort to cast
it.

-- 
   "Cut your own wood and it will warm you twice"