Re: Confused by y-or-n-p

[Stefan Monnier]

>> [ FWIW, I also think there are changes we should keep enabled only on
>>   `master` *until* they stop being unpopular.  I'm specifically
>>   thinking of things like removal of obsolete features.  E.g. we could
>>   have features obsolete since Emacs-25 removed from `master` right
>>   now, but with a way to get them back on-demand, and with the
>>   understanding that they will still be present in the Emacs-28
>>   release.  ]
>
> AFAIU, this would need a more complicated procedure for cutting
> a release branch: some commits would need to be reverted on the
> release branch.

No, I was thinking of changing `make-obsolete` and friends so they
undefine (or refrain from defining) the function/variable.  They could
do so by testing `emacs-version` (or some other way to detect the
`master` code) along with some extra config vars (e.g. a var to force
the behavior globally on way or the other or only for some
functions/variables).

I think this would require some finer control for variables, since it's
frequent for obsolete vars to still appear in the code (in order to
support code that makes use of that variable), but at least for
functions it should be quite straightforward.

It would definitely not require any special handling when cutting the
release branch or anything like that (since, as you point out, that
would be completely impractical).


        Stefan