Re: Imports / inclusion of s.el into Emacs

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 04.05.2020 20:37, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> > But changing something that exists, especially when it had existed for a
> > while, is a long, arduous journey with rare chance of success, IME.
>
> It's longer, but not by a long shot.

Of many discussion about changing default behavior that I've seen, the 
vast majority have failed.

> A recent example: the :extend
> face attribute.

It's an interesting counter-example. First, it did little to change the 
actual functionality, just the looks. Second, there were no noticeable 
consensus, inside or outside the core, that the new behavior is better 
(I've mostly seen dissenting feedback, but the split is probably more 
like 50/50). But apparently you liked it well enough because it made 
Emacs's behavior more compatible with other software _you_ were familiar 
with, that even breaking the expectations of a lot of our users, or 
having to force all theme authors to update their themes (until I came 
along with a fix) wasn't price too high.

> > Emacs has survived for decades, sure, but that's because it's based on
> > some fundamentally good ideas, and that it managed (probably as a
> > consequence) to attract a few very smart people along the way that keep
> > it running.
>
> That too, but it isn't enough.

Indeed, it isn't. Every such person is a stroke of luck, and people have 
a tendency to get old/change careers/retire/burn out/etc.