Re: .emacs-settings.el

[David Kastrup]

Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden> writes:

> On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 14:08:00 -0600 Tom Tromey <address@hidden> wrote: 
>
> Ted> That's what I mean by "suprising" and "hidden."  Only a few
> Ted> applications put such hidden settings files outside the home
> Ted> directory, I can think only of the CVS .cvsignore and Subversion
> Ted> .svn directories at the moment.
>
> Tom> Yeah, it is intentionally supposed to be similar to .cvsignore or
> Tom> .svn.  The hidden-ness, in my view, is a feature; some projects don't
> Tom> like to "clutter" their top-level directories with things like this.
> Tom> FWIW my precedent here is Eclipse, which makes .project and .settings
> Tom> directories.
>
> I think Emacs should not default to getting default settings from a
> hidden file in the path, personally, but it should be possible via
> customization to choose that behavior.  I wouldn't expect Emacs to
> do that by default, that's all.

I strongly disagree.  The file won't be there without the user having
taken some action to put it there, and if there is changed behavior,
the first place I would look for would be in a local hidden file.
That's what I do with other utilities as well that have local
dicrectory-relevant behavior.  If it is not there, then it becomes a
RPIT searching for the location where the stuff actually sits.  Files
starting with . are supposed to be auxiliary data, not content, and
this is _exactly_ what the scheme .* has been designed for.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum