Subject: RE: bug#16038: 24.3; latest change to with-help-window makes temp-buffer-browse useless

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2014 06:57:03 -0700 (PDT)

> PS personally I'd advise you to just revert this change.
> Read the description of with-output-to-temp-buffer in the elisp manual.
> As we showed with vc-annotate, it behaved like that "for ever".
> The help-mode thing is an integral part of what it does.
> 
> AFAICS, you didn't really say why you want to change this.
> If you don't like the hooks being non-empty by default,
> you could perhaps move that code to the body.
> 
> If you don't like the association of "temp buffer" and help, think of it
> as with-output-to-temp-help-buffer, if that makes you happier.

Which is what I argued in the original thread(s): the name is
misleading - nothing more.  The macro is (was, before this change)
about a help buffer, not about an arbitrary temporary buffer.

The right way to make the desired change is to introduce a new,
non-help-mode-related macro and use that where desired, not to
gratuitously change the behavior of the longstanding macro
`with-output-to-temp-buffer'.  (And preferably rename the latter
using defalias, so that the new name indicates that it is about
help mode - e.g., `with-output-to-temp-help-buffer'.)

As just one user, this unfortunate change caused me to make
version-adjusting code to handle it, in multiple libraries of mine.
Not a big deal, but it should not have been necessary at all.

However, Glenn, it seems this was already decided, with Eli, Stefan,
and Martin unpersuaded by my (and apparently your) argument.

Ref: bugs 8368, 17109, 17397, 17146 (and 16038)