RE: divorce.el
FWIW I agree with Charles, but I also think this could do a disservice to
XEmacs. However well intentioned, its making some sort of point and easy to
construe that point as bigoted in some way (even though I'm sure it isn't in
intent). Put another way, someone is inevitably going to take offense and I
don't see the value in putting out a package that does little more than
that.
andy
-----Original Message-----
From: xemacs-beta-admin(a)xemacs.org
[mailto:xemacs-beta-adminï¼ xemacs.org]On Behalf Of Charles G Waldman
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 5:40 PM
To: xemacs-beta(a)xemacs.org
Subject: Re: divorce.el
SL Baur writes:
>
> No, I'm not kidding. Please, please, pretty please. O-negai.
>
> How can we possibly stake our claim as the kitchen sink editor if
> divorce by email exists and we don't support it? We'll be the
> *first* to support it automatically and that's what packages are
> all about -- if you don't want it, don't load it.
There are an awful lot of useful goodies out there in Elisp-land. I'm
thinking of things like globrep.el, follow.el, auto-revert.el, etc.
All of these things would be sensible candidates for the package
system, because they are all things that are potentially useful.
Even the eperiodic.el thingy `that got mentioned on the list today.
If we packaged "eperiodic" with XEmacs, we'd be the first editor
(AFAICT) that had support for a built-in periodic table. We *could*
be the first to have that feature but does that mean that we *should*?
I can't imagine anyone ever availing themselves of divorce.el. I'd
bet good money that the intersection of the sets "xemacs users",
"people living in countries where divorce by email is legal", and
"people who are actually looking to get a divorce" is the empty set!
It may be a tiny bit funny as a joke, but I hope that good sense
prevails and it doesn't make it's way into the packages.
We've got a busted etags.el, screwed-up syntax tables, coding-system
confusion, funky buffer-tabs, a semi-functional GTK port, etc, etc,
etc, and people are wasting time adding features like
divorce-by-email?
I mean, I know its a volunteer project and people will do as they
please - you can't give orders to volunteers - but I can think of a
lot more useful ways to spend time than this kind of tomfoolery.
Oh, and by the way, speaking of pointless features, in addition to
being 3 year old news, the "coffee.el" link on xemacs.org points to
403-land. Can we please drop that silly news item from the website?
-Charles
PS. I wish I had more time to devote to XEmacs hacking! I changed
jobs a few months back and am finding myself with a lot less time for
doing this stuff :-(