On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
Why?  Shouldn't we look for "(string-match \(.*\) emacs-version)" and
fold that if we recognize (match-string 1)?

No.  There are lots of variations on that theme.  For example, in xemacs-packages/python-modes/pydoc.el, function pydoc-menu-enter, we see:

    (cond
     ;; GNU Emacs 19 or above
     ((and (not (string-match "XEmacs" emacs-version))
           ;; Version 19 and above
           (string-lessp "19" emacs-version))
     ...

which doesn't invoke match-string at all.  And then there is xemacs-packages/gnus/lisp/nntp.el, which defines the variable nntp-async-needs-kluge thusly:

  (string-match "^GNU Emacs 20\\.3\\." (emacs-version))

We should audit all of those string-match calls.  Some of them look wrong.  I see quite a few that just check the version number, with no differentiation between Emacs and XEmacs.  There are quite a few looking for "Lucid" only, and a number looking for "beta"!

Jerry, you're looking at this the wrong way.  Why should you care if
anybody is interested?  It's clearly interesting stuff (although I
probably won't work on it myself).  If alioth won't support an
arbitrary number of branches, I bet Canonical's Launchpad will.
That's one major reason for doing the dVCS thing.  The only question
is do you want to publish.

Mebbe I should get Barry Warsaw to bring his soapbox over and preach
the wonders of unofficial public branches.

Good point.  If I build it, maybe they'll come. :-)  Well, like I said, I'm not going to work on any of this stuff in earnest for a few months yet.  Still, I should  put what  little I do have out in public.
--
Jerry James
http://loganjerry.googlepages.com/