Subject: Re: bug#58459: Getting a fresh emacs session with no customisation

From: Christopher Dimech <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2022 21:40:41 +0200

> Sent: Friday, October 14, 2022 at 8:14 PM
> From: "Po Lu" <[email-masked]>
> To: "Christopher Dimech" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked], "Eli Zaretskii" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: bug#58459: Getting a fresh emacs session with no customisation
>
> Christopher Dimech <[email-masked]> writes:
>
> > The code to interface Emacs to X-based GUIs needs rewriting by an
> > expert, and has needed it for decades.
>
> Such a hypothetical rewrite (who wants to rewrite the 100,000-odd lines
> of code that are needed to work with modern X systems?) will probably
> not happen, given the amount of manpower we currently have at hand.
> Even if it does, it will not affect whether or not Emacs understands X
> resources.

The same conditions occur within the scientific community.  Almost
nobody is willing to perform serious work.  For instance, many things
considered modern today, if you look under the hood, you will find everything
is basically a wrapper around fortran work from the 60s.  Not much innovation
or scientific value since then.  Most work is cosmetic and mainly for entertainment.
The 60s and 70s were much more productive.

Have organised quite a few projects where the path was to rewrite.  But this does
not really fit in well these days, so unless things are marshaled by appropriate
individuals, it will continue be to as you say.

> > Until it gets that rewrite, changes in it are likely to break
> > something.
>
> This was almost certainly taken out of context.
>