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RE: [External] : Re: Propose to add setup-wizard.el to ELPA


From: Drew Adams
Subject: RE: [External] : Re: Propose to add setup-wizard.el to ELPA
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2022 18:47:06 +0000

> I think people might mix Customize's user-facing interface -- the
> forms, the buttons, the menus in Custom buffers, etc. -- with calling
> Customize functions from Lisp and with its implementation code.  When
> people say here they think Custom has a long way to achieve its
> purpose, which of those two they allude to?

Very good to make that distinction.

My opinion: Customize could use more love in
both regards.  And they're related, in that if
the code were not so obtuse then maybe more
users would make improvements to the UI.  To
improve the UI - even to add additional :type
widgets - you need to dive into that code.

* The UI is basically sound, but its usability
  and appearance could be improved.

* The code is not so easy to fathom.  And a
  quick look into anything tends to quickly
  send you down a rabbit hole of oopish code
  that's not like that of most Emacs libraries.

> Customize was designed to be easy on the user from the UI POV,

That should certainly be the first aim.

> it wasn't designed to be easy from the
> implementation POV.

Too bad (IMHO).

> Nor was it designed to be easy to understand its
> Lisp forms, because the assumption was that people
> who'd use Customize will rarely if ever look at
> the forms it produces when you save customizations.

If that includes an assumption that Elisp
programmers won't use the Customize UI then
that may well be part of the problem.

Not that everyone needs to master the code
used for it.  But it should at least be a
little more straightforward how to define
new :types etc.

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