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Re: [h-e-w] GnuTLS in win32


From: Eli Zaretskii
Subject: Re: [h-e-w] GnuTLS in win32
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 18:33:16 +0300

> From: Stephen Leake <address@hidden>
> Cc: Jason Lewis <address@hidden>,  address@hidden
> Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 06:40:31 -0400
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Don't change PATH from inside Emacs, that way lies madness.  
> 
> I've been doing it for years; it is extremely convenient to be able to
> switch compiler versions (for example) without leaving Emacs, when
> tracking down newly introduced compiler bugs/features.
> 
> > Always modify your PATH outside Emacs, before you start Emacs.
> > Otherwise, the complex ways in which PATH interacts with exec-path 
> 
> exec-path must always be a copy of PATH, that's easy to enforce.

The fact that you succeed in that doesn't mean it should be
recommended to others.  It's a dangerous thing to do; one needs to
_really_ understand what they are doing to avoid falling into traps.
People who ask for help with subjects such as this one usually don't
have enough expertise to avoid those traps.

> > and with commands invoked from Emacs (including those invoked via the
> > shell) will break in subtle ways.
> 
> Can you elaborate some use cases? I'd like to know what I'm missing.

Basically, Emacs uses exec-path to look for programs, but if the
command is invoked through the shell, the shell will then use PATH to
look for any programs you invoke through it.  If those two are
different, you get strange failures.

There's also the subtlety of process-environment vs
initial-environment.



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