Re: [RFC] Option to kill `emacs --daemon' when closing the last client frame

[Jim Porter]

On 10/24/2021 11:11 PM, Jean Louis wrote:
> Why in particular don't you use continuously the Emacs daemon if you
> are already invoking many times emacsclient?

Beyond it just being what I'm used to, the main reason is that I prefer 
to close Emacs when I'm done working on whatever it is I was doing, so 
that when I reopen it later, I have a fresh session with nothing open. 
(I could use `desktop-clear' to do this, but since, in my usage, I'm 
already closing all the Emacs frames to get them out of my way, that 
would just be an extra step I need to remember to do.)

> What you forgot to mention is that many buffers and files could be
> open in the same time, some of them unsaved. It is not just a question
> of emacsclient.
>
> A browser may not have "open files", it is not equivalent to Emacs as
> it has more static configuration.

In the age of web apps, that's less true than it was before. I may well 
be editing a file in a browser, composing an email, posting on a forum, 
etc. In "richer" web apps, these might auto-save for you if you leave 
the page, but many sites will just prompt you to save or discard your 
work in progress if you close the browser. This behavior is what I've 
customized my Emacs configuration to do.

> I don't think clients are important there.
>
> What is important are buffers and open files, some unfinished work.
>
> `daemon-kill-when-no-clients' makes no sense to me. I would not like
> not even by mistake to accidentally remove the last client and that my
> buffers and open files are lost because I have set the option to quit
> that way. I am using daemon option in the first place exactly to avoid
> the situation you wish to create.

That's why, in my patch[1], I call `save-buffers-kill-emacs' to kill the 
daemon when the last client frame is closed. That way, I'm prompted 
before the daemon stops, and can either save my work or change my mind 
and leave some Emacs frames open.

This has the additional benefit for me that if I shut down my system, I 
generally close all the windows first (or the OS does this for me), 
which means that when the last Emacs frame is closed, I'm prompted to 
save my unfinished work. If I had my configuration set to leave the 
daemon alive and not bother prompting to save when closing the last 
frame, I could still lose my unfinished work when the system actually 
reboots.

That loss of work could probably be resolved via `desktop-mode', but as 
mentioned above, I much prefer having a "fresh" Emacs session when I 
start it up.

- Jim

[1] 
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-emacs/2021-10/msg02184.html 
and https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-emacs/2021-10/msg02209.html