bug#14192: 24.3.50; recursive edit while running ispell not working usefully

[Stefan Kangas]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

>> That was 10 years ago, so I'm reaching out to see if this is still
>> an issue on a modern version of Emacs.
>
> AFAIK, nothing has changed in the behavior since then.
> I guess the authors did not intend the recursive edit to be used to
> change the buffer text.
> But if somebody uses it to change the buffer text, Emacs will happily
> mess it up.

OK, thanks.

>> If I don't hear back from you within a couple of months, Ill just assume
>> that this has been fixed and close this bug.
>
> I hope this is not your standard reply.  I mean, ten years, I could have
> died in the meantime, which would not mean that the bug has magically
> disappeared.  I hope you send this kind of text only to people you know
> that are still using Emacs regularly.  Because, if some user asks a
> question, gets no answer, then makes a bug report, and is ignored for
> ten years, it is very unfriendly to request anything at all.  I
> know about the situation of our bug collection, but this is not
> expedient.  You can't expect anyone to even still use Emacs after
> a whole decade.

Yes, this is my standard reply, and yes, if the bug reporter stops
responding, we sometimes just close the bug outright.

I'm not unsympathetic to your position, but please understand that we
have a very limited amount of resources given the tremendous stream of
incoming bugs and improvements that we have to manage.

If we don't sometimes do things summarily, maintaining Emacs will
quickly become an impossible task.  The only alternative I see is that
we simply stop caring about the number of open bugs in the bug tracker,
and then in another 5-10 years or so we nuke it from orbit and start a
new one.  That would lose even more information, but it's not like the
prospect does not sometimes sound pretty appealing.

So do tell us if we make mistakes, but please be patient with us if we
aren't always as polite or diligent as we are on our best days.

Or, even better, volunteer more time to help us fix the bugs.