Re: Replacing custom-set-variables

[rustom]

I sympathize with the OP.

Using customize is like having all the linux customizations in /etc
collapsed into one humongous file.
Or equivalently like the windows registry without any namespaces.

Of course as others have pointed out setq does not (always) replace
customize variable.
But when it can (which is mostly) it is neater and more 'programmer-
like'.

I will also add that if you use setq you usually want to do the setq-
ing  as an attachment to the hook for the mode whose customization you
want to do. Setq just-like-that (ie standalone) will usually not work.

For example here is my recentf setup

(add-hook 'recentf-load-hook
  (function (lambda ()
              (setq recentf-save-file "~/.emacs.d/recentfiles"))))
(recentf-mode 1)