Re: Gitlab Migration

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 03.09.2021 15:45, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > The problem with variables with indent-tabs-mode and
> > require-final-newline is they affect Emacs's behavior in ways that
> > aren't apparent to a new user, or to a beginner programmer. And then
> > they can cause problems for the teammates who aren't even using Emacs.
> >
> > Having a profile unassumingly called "Dmitry Gutov's Preferences" (who
> > would want to enable THAT, right?), which would need to be enabled to
> > avoid these issues, is a usability problem.
> I'd start by collecting the relevant settings.  E.g., if those 4 are
> the only ones, or close to that, then perhaps a single profile named
> "convenience" or somesuch would be enough.  But I suspect there are
> many more, so we'd need to divide them into groups, and then name each
> group accordingly.

A private email reminded me of a certain suggestion that has been made 
in this area. And here is a possible twist on the proposal:

What if we do introduce the "profiles" feature, *and* we change our 
practice to alter the defaults more easily as well? Including radical, 
mutinous ones, like indent-tabs-mode -> nil. Not all of them, of course, 
but with more of an eye toward being useful for new users (violent 
discussions about the default values will continue, but will sometimes 
results in changes, too).

And to avoid the problems with Emacs's default moving forward, we 
introduce a profile called "Good Old Days" which the folks who prefer 
things to generally stay the same, would enable, just once. Going 
forward, every time we change some default, we would consider adding the 
previous value to that profile. Or even do that automatically.