bug#10254: 24.0.92; Local variable bibtex-dialect has no effect

[Stefan Monnier]

>> > +(make-variable-buffer-local 'bibtex-dialect)
>> I don't think you should force it to be buffer-local.  Just leave it as
>> a global setting by default, and just change the code so that if the
>> user decides to make it local to some buffer, the rest of the code
>> handles it properly.

> This variable (and everything going with it) is new in Emacs 24. So
> to some extent we have to speculate about "typical usage patterns"
> of this variable.

I'd expect one "typical" usage is to have (setq bibtex-dialect 'biblatex)
in the .emacs file somewhere.  With your new code, the effect of this
setq will depend on whether bibtex.el is loaded before or after
executing the setq.
That's my main source of worry.

> value of this variable in their init file. Yet when they want to set
> this variable interactively (via the menu bar or the command

I have no opinion on whether the interactive commands set it globally or
buffer-locally, but that choice is orthogonal to the use of
make-variable-buffer-local (just call make-local-variable in those
commands if that's the behavior you're after).


        Stefan