Subject: Re: bug#49424: 27.2; Misdocumented default initialisation file

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2021 10:23:57 +0300

> Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2021 13:17:22 +1200
> From: Phil Sainty <[email-masked]>
> Cc: Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]>, [email-masked],
>  Robert Pluim <[email-masked]>
> 
> On 2021-07-08 05:58, Peter Oliver wrote:
> > If we’re making a change, here, it may be worth going all the way:
> > create $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/emacs if it and ~/.emacs.d don’t exist, and
> > hence use $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/emacs/init.el when creating a new
> > initialisation file.
> 
> I don't agree with doing that.
> 
> The current XDG_CONFIG_HOME behaviour is opt-in, and I think it should
> stay that way, partly so that the default behaviour is consistent across
> systems, but also because I think the suggested behaviour would cause
> widespread confusion from users who run Emacs before creating their
> ~/.emacs.d directory, and then can't figure out why their new config
> isn't working.  (IIRC that is exactly what happened with the original
> XDG_CONFIG_HOME support code before it was adjusted to ensure that it
> was opt-in behaviour, despite the fact that you needed to be running
> a pre-release build of Emacs to be affected and therefore likely to
> have a better understanding of things than the average newcomer.)

I tend to agree with Phil here.  Let's leave this part of Emacs alone
for a release or two, and see how the user community reacts to the
changes we did just recently.  Making changes right now in this
sensitive area could bring more trouble, and what practical problems
are we going to solve?