Re: Why is Elisp's defvar weird? And is eval_sub broken?

[Stefan Monnier]

> So the local-specialness feature is intended exclusively to be a workaround
> for the problem of non-prefixed symbols, not intended for any other purpose?

It's mostly intended so that someone can use a dynamically scoped
variable without worrying about stepping on other people's toes, yes.

> In that case, should desktop-first-buffer, desktop-buffer-ok-count, and
> desktop-buffer-fail-count be given init values to prevent local specialness,
> so that code outside desktop.el that calls desktop functions that use those
> variables doesn't have to do defvar on them?

We could, but AFAICT, these vars are only used in desktop.el (they
could/should use a double-dash to indicate that they're internal), so it
would be kind of pointless.


        Stefan