Re: Emacs unconditionally loads tramp.el

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Drew Adams" <address@hidden>
> Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:33:20 -0700
> 
> Y'know, I don't remember ever doing anything special to get ange-ftp to
> work. IIRC, I picked up vanilla Emacs and immediately accessed remote files.
> Maybe I'm forgetting something, but it can't have been too difficult.

What you are forgetting is how long it took until ange-ftp began to
support Windows seamlessly.  At some point, we were even distributing
an alternative ftp client, to work around bugs in the Microsoft
version.

> We're always talking about making things easier for newbies to use Emacs.
> Well, if we expect Windows users to pick Emacs up and use it out of the box,
> and if we want them to use Emacs to access remote files, and if tramp is the
> default way to do that now, then I suspect we're going to be disappointed in
> our expectations. Many Windows users will never experience using Emacs to
> access remote files - that's my guess. And that's too bad - this Emacs
> feature is much more important than most of the minutia we spend time
> discussing in our attempts to make things friendlier for Emacs newbies
> (menus, toolbars, fringe,...).

I doubt that many Windows users even consider a prospect of accessing
remote files.  But that's not an argument to avoid fixing this feature
on Windows, it's just that I don't think exaggerating its importance
is really required to convince us.

> Sorry for the rant. I just hate to see good things that work well stop
> working in the name of progress. On n'arrete pas le progres...

It's not useful to rant in this case.  Unless Tramp developers start
testing Tramp on Windows, they are under no obligation to fix Windows
problems.  Someone has to volunteer and do the job.  So either become
that person (which is the Free Software way of doing TRT), or wait
until someone else does.