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

From: Robert Pluim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2021 10:30:48 +0200

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

    >> 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.
    >>

Right. We should never create $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/emacs.

    >> 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.)

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

By 'this part' do you mean the XDG_CONFIG_HOME related changes, or
also the suggested change to prefer ~/.emacs.d/init.el when no config
files exist? The latter is a relatively small change, but itʼs in a
convoluted area of startup [1], so Iʼd have no problem with leaving it
alone.

Robert

Footnotes:
[1]  I made the change, tested it, and it gave incorrect results, so had
     to re-do it. Twice.

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