GNU bug report logs - #26181
Remove etags

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From: John Wiegley <jwiegley <at> gmail.com>
To: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 26181 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#26181: Remove etags
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:14:40 -0700

>>>>> "GM" == Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org> writes:

GM> I've never understood why Emacs includes a tags program. It's not part of
GM> the normal remit of a text editor.

That description applies to the majority of what Emacs has become today. :)

ctags is included because it's an auxiliary program to extend the ability of
Emacs to jump around code. That it's not implement in Emacs Lisp, or the C
core of Emacs itself, is really beside the point. For all intents and
purposes, it's part of what Emacs offers to the *user*, and I bet there are
many users who aren't even aware that it's a separate program.

GM> I would like to suggest removing etags so that the time saved can be spent
GM> on other things.

I appreciate your desire to optimize our project management burdens, but this
is better mentioned on emacs-devel than a bug report.

Removing etags will not increase the time spent on other things. You yourself
can ignore etags, and spend your time elsewhere, but as long as someone is
willing to keep working on etags, then by definition that is where they choose
to spend their time. I could take away the opportunity, certainly, but I can't
then allocate the time it would free up.

If no one is maintaining something, *and* no one is using it, that's the time
to consider deprecation and eventual removal.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2

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