Ar an dara lá de mí Eanair, scríobh Didier Verna:
Aidan Kehoe wrote:
> I think this is a reasonable way to prompt the users of the cl-*
> functions to change their code to use function names that have been
> available in XEmacs since 1997 and GNU Emacs since 1999.
We obviously disagree on this, but I think breaking existing code is
not a reasonable but a rude way of asking. The situation is more
complicated than just a matter of "asking people to upgrade their code".
I agree it’s not the ideal way of doing things, but the ideal way breaks
things for people and confuses them too, as I learned repeatedly with the
multiple-values changes.
For instance, w3 upstream doesn't have a problem, but there are
still
people using our (I mean the one in the packages repo) version of it.
For these people, you're effectively breaking their XEmacs, hence
- forcing them to do a manual installation of the upstream version,
- wait for a package update (is this going to happen ?)
- patching their local version which is not very good either.
I'm not opposed to breaking code from time to time in general when it's
for the greater good; it's just that I don't see the point in cases like
this where you can always define-obsolete-function-alias'es. Maintaining
compatibility doesn't hurt a bit, so why breaking it ?
It does, though. I mean, it’s better in code written for XEmacs, since we
have obsolete.el, but parts of cl.el and cl-extra.el looked like a generated
configure script for a long time. People don’t maintain things they feel
they don’t understand, and the compatibility stuff contributed to that
feeling.
--
‘Iodine deficiency was endemic in parts of the UK until, through what has been
described as “an unplanned and accidental public health triumph”, iodine was
added to cattle feed to improve milk production in the 1930s.’
(EN Pearce, Lancet, June 2011)
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