Subject: bug#75626: 31.0.50; Dired misses or double-processes files when auto-revert-mode is enabled

From: Michael Heerdegen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:33:38 +0100

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

> I tend to agree.  A boolean variable with "inhibit" in its name is
> much easier discovered than buffer-stale-function.

Sure - but discoverability is not the only point to consider.  If I
think this thought further:

In case of dired, the decision about whether the buffer should be
auto-reverted is made by evaluating a (not trivial) condition and thus
we use a function value.  This is hardly avoidable.

When we introduce a redundant new boolean variable, we would have to
decide what happens when the two disagree - the result could be
surprising.  And when one would need to debug auto revert, one would
have to keep an eye on two variables instead of one.  A complication
without any practical benefit IMO.  As we saw, finding a fix for a
simple related bug was already not easy.

So i would rather consider to rename the variable
`buffer-stale-function' for the discoverability - or just leave things
as they are.

Michael.