Subject: bug#11457: 24.1.50; incompatible removal of apropos user options

From: "Drew Adams" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 16:22:34 -0700

So now you've removed the user options for the apropos faces,
`apropos-symbol-face' and so on.  With the single exception of
`apropos-match-face' (why the exception? why not give it an apropos
face, which has as its default attributes those of the face `match'?).
 
However, you made this change in a way that disrespects users.  There is
no deprecation.  Starting immediately, you no longer respect a user's
customizations of these options that you've removed.
 
E.g., instead of temporarily using, say,
 
(if (boundp 'apropos-symbol-face) ; Deprecated in 24.1, to be
    apropos-symbol-face           ; desupported in 24.3
  'apropos-symbol)
 
You immediately use only the face symbol `apropos-symbol'.
 
While I'm in favor of using faces instead of face options (variables),
there is a right way and a wrong way to go about such a change.  The way
you've done it, you invalidate existing user customizations.
Not a big deal, but not the best in user friendliness.
 
At least you mentioned the change in the NEWS - that's good.  Better
would have been to deprecate but not immediately desupport the user
options.

In GNU Emacs 24.1.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2012-05-06 on MARVIN
Bzr revision: 108144 [email-masked]
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
Configured using:
 `configure --with-gcc (4.6) --no-opt --enable-checking --cflags
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libXpm-3.5.8/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libXpm-3.5.8/src
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libpng-dev_1.4.3-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/zlib-dev_1.2.5-2/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/giflib-4.1.4-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/jpeg-6b-4/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/tiff-3.8.2-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/gnutls-3.0.9/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libiconv-1.13.1-1-dev/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libxml2-2.7.8/include/libxml2'