Subject: Re: bug#66706: [PATCH] Automatic elisp dialect insertion

From: Mattias Engdegård <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2023 21:09:27 +0200

25 okt. 2023 kl. 20.40 skrev Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>:

>> No, the automatic cookie insertion doesn't affect existing code.
> 
> Which is even worse, because some files will use lexical-binding, and
> others will use dynamic binding.

In other words just like now (but better, since hardly any new code will use dynamic binding).

It depends on how much sympathy you have with people having existing code written in the old dialect. It could be argued that they should have converted their code long ago, but that assumes that they know that they actually have that problem.

Only now do we have a compiler warning telling them, which is only effective if (a) people recompile their code when they upgrade Emacs (which they don't need to do because we are almost too good at .elc backward compatibility, and some run their code interpreted all the time) and (b) they look at at the warning and decide to take action.

We can and probably should try to devise other methods to catch those falling through the net, but the assumption was also that we should give them some time between being aware of the problem and being forced to do something. Of course, this can be discussed.

Indeed, ripping off the bandage quickly can also sometimes be the best solution.