Carsten Dominik <carsten.domi...@gmail.com> writes: > The documentation of defconst says: > >> Define SYMBOL as a constant variable. >> This declares that neither programs nor users should ever change the >> value. This constancy is not actually enforced by Emacs Lisp, but >> SYMBOL is marked as a special variable so that it is never lexically >> bound. > > So it is pretty clear about the intent of such a definition, which is > to never change it - even though it does not enforce it.
I must have been clear as mud, because that's exactly what I'm suggesting since the beginning of this thread: set "DEADLINE" and al. in stone, and never change them again. I have been pointing out, though, that it would not break previous changes if they were done with `setq', according to how defconst are handled. But I never intended to make it a feature, nor did I suggest that was desirable. > As you have said, we still want to allow users in principle to change > these variables. No, I haven't said such a thing. I said, verbatim, "In principle, they mustn't be changed", which means quite the contrary. > They have been defcustoms in the past, some people will have changed > them. Their setup will break when they switch to a new version. Indeed. But that's easy to fix programmatically. > That is why I object to changing their status. I think it causes > unnecessary breakage, and we can prevent this by keeping them > defcustom. Nothing is really gained by changing their status. It fixes at least a bug, prevents headaches by simplifying maintenance, makes Org syntax more portable and more cache friendly. I wouldn't call that "nothing". Anyway, I have well understood that you don't want to change their status. So be it. Regards, -- Nicolas Goaziou
