compat unification (was: elpa.gnu.org policy)

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden> writes:

> Me too.  I wish it was possible to just write towards Emacs 24 and
> pretend that nothing else existed, but just providing compat functions
> for older/different Emacs versions, but then you'd have competing compat
> functions for, well, everything.  So it's not doable.  *sigh*

Or is it?

I'm just brainstorming here.  (Or barnstorming.  Freebasing.
Something.)

What if...  there was an ems-compat function in bzr Emacs.  It would be
a, sort of, "official" current-Emacs-to-everything compat layer.  It
would probably be totally crufty, but it'd basically be along the lines
of

(unless (fboundp 'put-image)
  (cond ((featurep 'xemacs)
         (defun put-image (...) ...))
        (t
         (defalias 'put-image 'ignore))))

Any packages that are external/internal (like Gnus) would include a copy
of this file in its distribution, and would load it.  Emacs 24 itself
would never load it, but would just have it in its distribution as a
central clearinghouse for the compat functions, and any external
packages could just pull it in as needed.

Does it sound really moronic?
         
-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  address@hidden * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen