Re: Customize Rogue

[Luc Teirlinck]

Juanma Barranquero wrote:

   That I don't want to use Customize does not mean I'm not forced to use
   it sometimes, or go 'round it.

   For example, I have in my .emacs the following:

    (put 'inhibit-startup-echo-area-message 'saved-value t)
    (setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message (user-login-name))

   Yes, I'm misusing `inhibit-startup-echo-area-message'. But I *know* what
   I'm doing, and I use the exact same .emacs on several machines. That's
   exactly what I want to do.

   I've had to take a look into startup.el to know how to subvert the
   check; in my view, I shouldn't have to. I should just have to do

   (custom-setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message (user-login-name))

   and be done with it.

It seems to me that in the above example you are not at all trying to
get around roadblocks put in your way by customize, quite to the
contrary, you are taking advantage of the way customize is implemented
in startup.el to get around what you really want to get around, namely
the intentional disabling of code like:

(setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message (user-login-name))

Customize itself does not let you get around that: it requires a
string constant.

The reason to disable

(setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message (user-login-name))

is out of fear that somebody else might blindly copy your .emacs.

(custom-setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message (user-login-name))

would not get around that problem.

Of course, you may be confident that nobody is going to blindly copy
your .emacs.  But there are plenty of ways that you can achieve what
you want to achieve.  For instance, it would seem that:

(defun startup-echo-area-message ())

in .emacs would work, as would plenty of other (maybe better) stuff.

Anyway, this is a completely separate issue, unrelated to customize.

I am not necessarily saying that you do not have a point, only that if
you do, your example seems badly chosen.  (Unless I am completely
misunderstanding it.)

Sincerely,

Luc.