Re: [O] [RFC] Change some defcustoms into defcont

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Carsten Dominik <address@hidden> writes:

> The documentation of defconst says:
>
>> Define SYMBOL as a constant variable.
>> This declares that neither programs nor users should ever change the
>> value.  This constancy is not actually enforced by Emacs Lisp, but
>> SYMBOL is marked as a special variable so that it is never lexically
>> bound.
>
> So it is pretty clear about the intent of such a definition, which is
> to never change it - even though it does not enforce it.

I must have been clear as mud, because that's exactly what I'm
suggesting since the beginning of this thread: set "DEADLINE" and al. in
stone, and never change them again.

I have been pointing out, though, that it would not break previous
changes if they were done with `setq', according to how defconst are
handled. But I never intended to make it a feature, nor did I suggest
that was desirable.

> As you have said, we still want to allow users in principle to change
> these variables.

No, I haven't said such a thing. I said, verbatim, "In principle, they
mustn't be changed", which means quite the contrary.

> They have been defcustoms in the past, some people will have changed
> them. Their setup will break when they switch to a new version.

Indeed. But that's easy to fix programmatically.

> That is why I object to changing their status. I think it causes
> unnecessary breakage, and we can prevent this by keeping them
> defcustom. Nothing is really gained by changing their status.

It fixes at least a bug, prevents headaches by simplifying maintenance,
makes Org syntax more portable and more cache friendly. I wouldn't call
that "nothing".

Anyway, I have well understood that you don't want to change their
status. So be it.


Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou