Re: Re: One org file, multiple exports, is it possible?

[Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com>]

Thomas S. Dye <tsd@tsdye.com> wrote:

> Thanks Bernt,
> 
> So, "broken custom settings" appear to be the cause of the unexpected
> behavior.  Two questions:
> 
> 1) Do programmers have a name for this situation, where custom
> settings seemed to work perfectly for a long time but then failed
> noticeably with the introduction of new, correct code into the .emacs?
> 

I don't think so.

> 2) Is there a useful strategy for finding the minimal .emacs that
> illustrates the failure?  I might have 100 customizations in the
> various starter kit configuration files.  If combinations of
> customizations are a possibility, I'm looking at quite a bit of random
> experimentation without some kind of strategy.
> 

Bisection is about the only reasonable strategy, short of oracular
guesswork. I have a single .emacs that's (mostly) a sequence of
(conditional) loads/requires of individual package config files. I just
comment out the whole thing, verify correct operation, and then
uncomment out the first/second half and try again. With 100 packages, 7
cycles will get you down to a single package and then you just do the
same thing within the package config file. Given a reproducer that you
can run in batch mode, this goes fairly quickly.

HTH,
Nick