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RE: doc of defining minor modes


From: Drew Adams
Subject: RE: doc of defining minor modes
Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 10:43:16 -0700

    > It's not obvious to readers of the doc why we provide an :init-value
    > possibility and yet we warn people not to use it (except in a
    > rare case). There needs to be a good explanation of this uncommon
    > coupling. The explanation needs to indicate how the problem that the
    > admonition hopes to prevent could arise, that is, _how_ a library
    > might get loaded without being loaded directly by the user.
    > That is not obvious.

    I don't think it's worth the trouble to write a long explanation.
    It's perfectly OK to have arguments and features marked as
    "don't ever use this unless you really know what you're doing".

It's more like "don't use this if you _know_ what you're doing and your
library is exceptional" (large, complex, coupled with other libraries,
preloaded,...).

The typical, simple case of a standalone external library will not be
preloaded or required by another library, it will not have autoload cookies,
and it would never be loaded behind the user's back. I think it's worth
pointing out what the potential but uncommon problem is.

    The problem is that we can't integrate such a package into Emacs without
    first fixing this behavior.  So of course we don't encourage that.

Changing :init-value t to :init-value nil would be the least of your
integration worries. I really don't see that concern as justification for
such a blanket admonition.

It makes sense, in any case and _especially_ if the admonition is kept as
general as it is, to explain the problem, so programmers know what they're
doing and why.





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