bug#40774: Error messages shouldn't be hidden when the user is idle

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net>
> Cc: larsi@gnus.org,  40774@debbugs.gnu.org,  ndame@protonmail.com
> Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2021 10:35:13 +0200
> 
> > So there will be some effect of this reordering, if some
> > clear-message-function does something that you say it shouldn't.
> 
> Of course, when authors decide to shoot themselves in the foot,
> we can't prevent this.

They might say we shoot them in their foot, by changing the order.

> > This whole discussion started from a request to be able to accumulate
> > messages in the echo-area so that the user who is away could see them
> > all when he/she comes back from whatever took him/her away.  There
> > could be quite a lot of messages accumulated during that period, and
> > the request was to leave them all on display.  For which you proposed
> > to use clear-message-function in a way that doesn't actually clear
> > them.
> >
> > Is the above an accurate description and summary of what is being
> > proposed here?  If so, is it now clear what kind of job I think
> > display of echo-area messages was never designed to support?
> 
> Thanks for explanation, now it's clear where is the misunderstanding.
> 
> Actually, the patch for clear-message-function here is unrelated
> to the feature that uses set-message-function to accumulate messages
> and doesn't use clear-message-function.
> 
> The feature here is intended for users who want to always leave
> the last displayed message in the echo-area, and never clear it.
> It will be possible even to do this conditionally.

But if messages aren't cleared, they will accumulate, and then we get
to the problems I described.  So it is not "unrelated", really.

In any case, if this feature is unrelated, why do you want to have it
on the release branch?