Some candidates for obsoletion

Some candidates for obsoletion

[Glenn Morris]

Here are some lisp files that I think are candidates for obsoletion:

vip.el
vi.el
  - I don't think Emacs needs 3 different vi emulators (these plus viper).
    These two have seen very little development in recent years (decades).

tpu-edt.el
crisp.el
ws-mode.el
  - These are emulations of very old things. I don't imagine many people
    are going to start using them these days. If not obsolete, perhaps
    move to GNU ELPA?


But it's mainly the first two.

Re: Some candidates for obsoletion

[Stefan Monnier]

> Here are some lisp files that I think are candidates for obsoletion:

> vip.el
> vi.el
>   - I don't think Emacs needs 3 different vi emulators (these plus viper).
>     These two have seen very little development in recent years (decades).

> tpu-edt.el
> crisp.el
> ws-mode.el
>   - These are emulations of very old things. I don't imagine many people
>     are going to start using them these days. If not obsolete, perhaps
>     move to GNU ELPA?

These all sound good to me,


        Stefan

Re: Some candidates for obsoletion

[Bozhidar Batsov]

On 29 May 2014, at 5:02, Glenn Morris wrote:

> Here are some lisp files that I think are candidates for obsoletion:
>
> vip.el
> vi.el
> - I don't think Emacs needs 3 different vi emulators (these plus 
> viper).
>   These two have seen very little development in recent years 
> (decades).

Pretty sure even viper is more or less obsolete these days (as is 
vimpulse). Everyone seems to be using evil.

>
> tpu-edt.el
> crisp.el
> ws-mode.el
> - These are emulations of very old things. I don't imagine many people
>   are going to start using them these days. If not obsolete, perhaps
>   move to GNU ELPA?
>
>
> But it's mainly the first two.

Re: Some candidates for obsoletion

[Stefan Monnier]

> Pretty sure even viper is more or less obsolete these days (as is
> vimpulse). Everyone seems to be using evil.

But Evil is not bundled with Emacs (and likely won't be any time soon),
so "within Emacs", Viper is not obsoleted by anything else.


        Stefan

Re: Some candidates for obsoletion

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

I share your expectation that few users use these files any more, but
please verify that with the users but before you do anything to them.
Please post on help-gnu-emacs and ask the user community to verify this.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.

Re: Some candidates for obsoletion

[Glenn Morris]

Richard Stallman wrote:

> please verify that with the users but before you do anything to them.
> Please post on help-gnu-emacs and ask the user community to verify this.

I don't see the need. I'm asking here.
Files in lisp/obsolete are just as usable as when they lived in another
directory.
It is always at least several Emacs releases/years between "move something to
obsolete/" and "delete it altogether".
If someone sees a mode they passionately love get moved to obsolete/,
I assume this will prompt them to register an objection, at which point
we can decide whether to un-obsolete it.

Re: Some candidates for obsoletion

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

    > please verify that with the users but before you do anything to them.
    > Please post on help-gnu-emacs and ask the user community to verify this.

    I don't see the need. I'm asking here.

This list is not a representative sample of Emacs users.

    Files in lisp/obsolete are just as usable as when they lived in another
    directory.
    It is always at least several Emacs releases/years between "move something to
    obsolete/" and "delete it altogether".

True, but if this is meant to trigger feedback from users, it should
ask them for feedback.  How about setting them up so that if someone
invokes them they display a message "Please write to
emacs-devel@gnu.org if you don't want this to get deleted some day."?

Or is the idea to leave them permanently in the obsolete dir?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.

Re: Some candidates for obsoletion

[Stefan Monnier]

> True, but if this is meant to trigger feedback from users, it should
> ask them for feedback.  How about setting them up so that if someone
> invokes them they display a message "Please write to
> emacs-devel@gnu.org if you don't want this to get deleted some day."?

That applies to pretty much everything we move to `obsolete' or we
declare as `obsolete'.  And yes, we could/should improve our
"obsolescence infrastructure".


        Stefan

Re: Some candidates for obsoletion

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

    That applies to pretty much everything we move to `obsolete' or we
    declare as `obsolete'.  And yes, we could/should improve our
    "obsolescence infrastructure".

How about doing that before moving any more into `obsolete'?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.