Stefan Monnier wrote: AFAIK, the motivation was also for some other cases where the user may somehow setq the variable before loading the file. IIRC this setq may actually be done by Custom (at a time where it doesn't yet know that the var have a :setter).
The user should not set a minor mode variable directly unless setting the variable is all that is needed to enable the mode, in which case there is no need to call the function if the variable is already set. The same applies to Custom. Moreover, if it is done before loading the file, it is done before the define-minor-mode. But this is non-obvious, so it's ugly. In Elisp, if you call a function before it is defined, you get an error. If you reference a variable before it is defined, you get a compiler warning, unless you use a compiler defvar. That is true in particular for :set functions if the defcustom is not produced by define-minor-mode. Why should defcustoms defined by define-minor-mode be the lone exception? I do not believe that having to define functions and variables before using them is that horrible, but if it is, then should not changes in the way files are loaded or compiled be implemented, instead of this define-minor-mode only kludge? Also often those functions use the variable, so to shut up the byte-compiler you need to pre-declare the variable. That is what compiler defvars are for. Compiler defvars do not have the confusing negative side effects that eval-after-load has. Miles complained loudly (in the form of comments, some of which may still be in the current elisp code ;-) These comments make no sense. Sincerely, Luc. _______________________________________________ Emacs-devel mailing list Emacs-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-devel
