Re: .emacs-settings.el

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:34:32 +0200 David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote: 

DK> Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden> writes:
>> On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:04:30 +0200 address@hidden (Michaël Cadilhac) wrote: 
>> 
MC> Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden> writes:
>>>> I would not make it hidden, to avoid surprises: project.el
>> 
MC> So sad the features of project.el will not be usable in the lisp/
MC> directory of Emacs, then :-)
>> 
>> I think surprising the user is a bad thing, so I'd rather not have a
>> hidden file.  The penalty of name conflicts is not as bad as using
>> hidden data to influence an application's behavior.

DK> Uh, you are arguing against _any_ file with a .* name right now: all
DK> of them are used to influence an application's behavior without
DK> cluttering directory listings.

DK> So I don't buy this argument.

I think you've missed the difference between a hidden file anywhere in
the directory tree and in a well-known location.  We're talking about a
{project,dir-locals}.el file that in /a, /a/b, /a/b/c, or /a/b/c/d could
affect the settings for /a/b/c/d/* and every file under that.  You'd
have to do a `find` to get all the hidden files (or some equivalent
shell game).  That's what I mean by "suprising" and "hidden."  Only a
few applications put such hidden settings files outside the home
directory, I can think only of the CVS .cvsignore and Subversion .svn
directories at the moment.  Emacs doesn't do that AFAIK, so it would be
at least a little surprising to current users.  I personally think it
would be a bad design decision.

Files like .emacs, .profile, etc. are in a single, well-known location,
so they are easy to find.  This compensates for their invisibility
(whether that's a good design decision is another discussion that's not
pertinent).

Ted