Re: Install C source code for for debugging help

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> writes:

>> What other GNU project installs sources, let alone by default?
>> Why should Emacs be different?
>
> Because Emacs provides buttons to jump straight to the source.
> I think it is an important feature of Emacs that the source code is
> always within easy reach.  I feel it makes it "Freer": we don't just
> allow the users to have access to the source, we even encourage them to
> dig into it.

I agree; it seems like a good change (and having the mechanism in-tree
will, as you pointed out, perhaps encourage the distributions to include
the sources).

But it is a pretty unusual thing to include in a distribution.
Including the .el.gz files makes more sense, because people can copy
functions and stuff to their .emacs files and make changes, and then
Emacs behaves differently.  You can't do that with .c.gz files, so
they'd be only for documentation's sake.

-- 
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   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no