Re: Yikes! easy-menu-add is suddenly compiled to `ignore', without any warning.

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Eli.

On Wed, Apr 07, 2021 at 14:41:01 +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2021 09:29:38 +0000
> > From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>

> > Hello, Emacs and Stefan K.

> > In Emacs 28, easy-menu-add is now compiled to `ignore'.  This isn't
> > friendly, particularly as in Emacs 27.2 and earlier, it just worked,
> > without any warnings of impending obsoletion.

> > The warning message Emacs 28.1 gives out is particularly unfriendly and
> > unhelpful.  It looks like this:

> >     cc-mode.el:2591:4: Warning: `easy-menu-add' is an obsolete function
> >     (as of 28.1); use `ignore' instead.

> > Use `ignore' instead?

> easy-menu-add was an alias of 'ignore' since 4 years ago.  How come
> it is suddenly an issue what it is compiled to?  Are you sure the
> issue isn't the obsolescence warning itself? that was indeed added
> last November.

The issue is indeed the warning message, from which I got the impression
that menu functionality had been removed.  The message appeared to be
telling me not to bother about this apparent loss in functionality.

It's a strange thing indeed to suggest using `ignore' in source code,
except for certain specific reasons.  Suggesting total removal of
easy-menu-add, if there is a way of doing that, would be better.

> > Why have we not followed the normal procedure here, by marking the
> > function as obsolete, yet leaving it working, for one or two major
> > versions, and only then removing it?

> It wasn't removed, so the procedure followed here is indeed our usual
> one.

OK.  The warning message was confusing, at least for me.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).