Re: Canonical location for emacs-version string in source tree?

[Stefan Monnier]

>     I have several co-existing `emacs' executables here, and they coexist
>     just fine with a single DOC file.  They just all show the same
>     docstrings, which I wouldn't even consider as an issue.
> That means only one of them gives the correct doc strings.

Depends what you mean by "correct docstrings".  It means they will all
show the latest docstrings, which are usually the more correct ones, in
my world.  As you know all too well, documentation is not quite like
code.  It's for that same reason that we do not need to document every
docstring change in the ChangeLog.

> I set up a mechanism that has worked fine for decades
> and enables each version to display its own doc string.

Actually, it stopped working when we started to leave docstrings (and
"worse": byte-code) in the .elc files.  Ever since this (good) change
was installed your mechanism has only worked for pre-loaded packages.
And noone complained about it, AFAICT, so this subtlety you're trying to
defend is really not worth the trouble.

My bet is that if you try it, you won't notice the difference.


        Stefan