From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.bugs Subject: bug#38696: "If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up" Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2019 21:37:14 -0500 Message-ID: References: <87eewyr1f4.8.fsf@jidanni.org> <71ad22c1-0af2-4428-8d64-22e21f4b2a7b@default> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="3552"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" Cc: 38696@debbugs.gnu.org, arthur.miller@live.com, jidanni@jidanni.org To: Drew Adams Original-X-From: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Dec 25 03:38:15 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1ijwYw-0000jh-GC for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 25 Dec 2019 03:38:14 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:43352 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1ijwYq-0005fq-3E for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 24 Dec 2019 21:38:08 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:45778) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1ijwYl-0005eW-1C for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Dec 2019 21:38:04 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ijwYj-0005XY-Td for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Dec 2019 21:38:02 -0500 Original-Received: from debbugs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.43]:47233) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ijwYj-0005XT-R0 for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Dec 2019 21:38:01 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-debbugs by debbugs.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1ijwYj-0006Nf-O4 for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Dec 2019 21:38:01 -0500 X-Loop: help-debbugs@gnu.org Resent-From: Richard Stallman Original-Sender: "Debbugs-submit" Resent-CC: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Resent-Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2019 02:38:01 +0000 Resent-Message-ID: Resent-Sender: help-debbugs@gnu.org X-GNU-PR-Message: followup 38696 X-GNU-PR-Package: emacs Original-Received: via spool by 38696-submit@debbugs.gnu.org id=B38696.157724144424481 (code B ref 38696); Wed, 25 Dec 2019 02:38:01 +0000 Original-Received: (at 38696) by debbugs.gnu.org; 25 Dec 2019 02:37:24 +0000 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:53206 helo=debbugs.gnu.org) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1ijwY7-0006Mm-P7 for submit@debbugs.gnu.org; Tue, 24 Dec 2019 21:37:23 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:36318) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1ijwY6-0006MZ-7d for 38696@debbugs.gnu.org; Tue, 24 Dec 2019 21:37:22 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:53839) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ijwY0-0005E0-Gn; Tue, 24 Dec 2019 21:37:16 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1ijwXy-00040G-MJ; Tue, 24 Dec 2019 21:37:14 -0500 In-Reply-To: <71ad22c1-0af2-4428-8d64-22e21f4b2a7b@default> (message from Drew Adams on Tue, 24 Dec 2019 08:08:11 -0800 (PST)) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-BeenThere: debbugs-submit@debbugs.gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 209.51.188.43 X-BeenThere: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org List-Id: "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "bug-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.bugs:173735 Archived-At: [[[ 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. ]]] > A priori that sounds complicated, and maybe error > prone, to me. But maybe it's worth considering. I am not trying to insist. > My suggestion would be to just change the comment > wording a bit, to make clear that future use of > Customize might overwrite any manual changes you > make to that code. IOW, state that clearly as a > major reason _why_ you're advised not to edit the > code. I agree that would be an improvement. > I'd even suggest that if `custom-file' is > undefined then Customize should immediately ask > a user to define it, instead of just silently > writing to a user's init file. I think that would make Emacs usage a little more complicated for lots of users, and only a few would benefit. -- Dr Richard Stallman Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)