Re: New emacsen-common problems - we need to discuss emacsen-policy.

[Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu>]

karlheg@bittersweet.inetarena.com (Karl M. Hegbloom) writes:

>  I propose that rather than putting that init snippet into
>  `site-start', it ought to be put into a `debian-start.el', and then
>  the `startup.el' codes that load `site-start.el' ought to be
>  patched...

If you're suggesting changing the current:

  (if site-run-file
      (progn
        (if (load "debian-startup" t t nil) 
            (debian-startup 'emacs20))
        (load site-run-file t t nil)))

into this

  (if site-run-file
    (progn
      (load "debian-startup" t t nil)
      (load site-run-file t t nil)))

then I think I'm probably fine with it, though I don't know what it
really gains us over the current setup, and I generally prefer not
having a file do anything when it's loaded if it's not necessary.  So
I'd tend to prefer the separate function call.  The change only saves
us one line of code...  Though perhaps you were proposing something
more complex.

In the end one of the things I'd like to try and do is to minimize the
Debian changes to the upstream source.  I'd like to keep as much of
the Debian specific code as possible over in emacsen-common.

>  We'd then dump in our `debian-start.elc', and at toplevel of it, do

What's the point of dumping?  (presuming you mean dumping at build
time).

>  I would also patch the location of `site-start.el' and `default.el',
>  to locate them down under "/etc/$emacsflav/".  Perhaps that location
>  can be made build-time configurable, and the patch submitted upstream
>  also?  Other sites / distributions may find that useful also.

>  We should distribute blank `site-start' and `default' programs with
>  our emacsen packages -- ones with only a comment header, describing
>  what this init program is for and when it is run with regards to
>  the user init file.

We're already supposed to be distrbuting a blank site-start file (see
debian-emacs-policy).  Packages should not be providing their own.  We
don't provide a default.el, though I could add that to policy and add
the blank file to emacsen-common.  That probably makes sense.  We
ought to be consistent.

>  I think that there should also be a set of
>  "/etc/$emacsflav/local-init.d/" directories supported, for local
>  use only.

I'm not sure I follow here; is there a precedent for that?  I'd rather
leave this fancier structure up to the local admin unless there's some
compelling reason not to.

>  Rob, are you aware that XEmacs now uses "auto-autoloads.el" programs?

[...]

>  Because of that, I think that perhaps the "/etc/xemacs*/site-start.d"
>  stuff may need adjusting... or maybe not - the maintainers of the
>  elisp deb packages may already be aware of this.

[...]

No.  I'm not really familiar with xemacs.  I trust the maintainers to
bring up discussions whenever we may need to make modifications to
accomodate various flavors other than FSF emacs newer than 19.

So far I don't know of anything that needs fixing on that front, but
I'm a bit behind in handling bugs, so there might be something
pending.

Thanks for the feedback.

-- 
Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu> PGP=E80E0D04F521A094 532B97F5D64E3930