Re: [PATCH] defaults.el: record and revert changing XEmacs defaults across time

nix> I'd do that (if I had commit privs, which I don't), except nix> that this package seems not very useful in unsupported: This is purely a temporary communication device. Obviously once people think it's a good idea it gets moved to somewhere useful. I'll do something about it tomorrow. nix> Good idea. packages in source is not my idea. I'll take credit for the idea of actually working on it rather than just bitchin', tho'. nix> But surely our *current* division needs fixing: `xemacs-base' nix> just seems to mean `stuff that could be in core but we want nix> to be usable in several Emacs versions', which is mixing two nix> orthogonal things together (distribution method and nix> XEmacs-versions-we-run-under). Yeah, I'm not sure about that thing. nix> That's probably a good place for it --- although many of the nix> most important XEmacs defaults are located in core, and if nix> defaults.el goes into xemacs-base, the core stuff can't use nix> it, can it? Well, there's a bootstrap problem for people who _only_ check out xemacs from CVS. Everybody else will be assumed to have it as part of the standard library. If "make xemacs" doesn't call it, it doesn't belong in core. :-) Hm. I guess it does belong in core, then, as libraries being loaded into temacs for dumping _would_ call it. Ben has a mechanism that suppresses package loading if the library is also in core. nix> Yes. Unless the database gets truly vast, a Lisp library nix> could handle it perfectly well; Yeah, I've read Jamie-on-databases, and disk usage stats that have been known to make young girls squeal. nix> That was actually semi-intentional: the idea was to track nix> `the way XEmacs behaved' and let you freely revert it to nix> `exactly the way it was'. I think that's an excellent place to start. Since anything managed by custom will have the necessary information to determine that it's a user preference, I think the first cut (and maybe the only one needed) is to say "It's best to call this stuff in init.el", teach it not to mess with user customizations, and assume everything else is either damage from the XEmacs Dev Team or truly E-Vile package code. -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Ask not how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.