Subject: Re: bug#36320: 25.1; Do not prioritize Xresources over customized font, especially not *Font

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2020 13:00:38 +0100

hackerb9 <[email-masked]> writes:

> You can test it like so:
>
>     $ echo '*font:variable' | xrdb -merge
>     $ emacs
>
> You'll notice that it overrides a default font saved in your .emacs
> file. E.g., 
>
>     (custom-set-faces
>      '(default ((t (:family "Latin Modern Mono" :foundry "GNU" :slant normal :weight normal :height 120 :width normal)))))
>
> This is very confusing behavior. It makes more sense that anything set
> within a user's .emacs init file will override an Xresource preference —
> which could have even been set by the site's system administrator, not
> the user.

The X resources are set per display, so it's more likely that they are
correct than the .emacs settings (which make sense as a fallback).

If you're not working on different systems with a shared $HOME (over NFS
or something), then this probably doesn't make that much sense, but
that's the common architecture when this was made, and changing this now
would break many people's setups, probably.

So this can't be changed at this point, and I'm closing this bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no