bug#31656: 26.1; `fill-paragraph' malformats in emacs-lisp-mode

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Guath <stefan@automata.se>
> Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2018 12:36:00 +0200
> Cc: eliz@gnu.org, 31656@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> The very idea of shadowing the global `fill-column' in the first place breaks 
> the Principle Of Least
> Astonishment

If that is so, then we should have gobs of astonished users since 1995.

> and introduces annoyance and extra work for the user when trying to 
> understand why the
> explicit setting of `fill-column' is not respected.

Documenting the current behavior should go a long way towards helping
users understand that, right?

> So, I guess my basic question is what value 
> `emacs-lisp-docstring-fill-column' tries to add?

>From my POV, the answer is clear: it allows users to have different
customizable defaults for fill-column in Emacs Lisp and elsewhere.
E.g., in text modes, it is customary to enlarge the default to 79 or
thereabouts, but in Emacs Lisp we generally say that good style is to
make lines in doc strings no wider than 60 characters (see the ELisp
manual).

> To me this entire functionality should either be removed or fixed so that its 
> behavior reflects its current docs. In
> its current state it just malformats elisp files in unexpected ways. Or am I 
> missing something?

I'm sorry, but after so many years we had this working, removing this
functionality is out of the question.  I suggested to fix the docs to
match the implementation; if someone has other suggestions that don't
break existing behavior, or at least let users get back existing
behavior, please describe those suggestions.

Thanks.