Re: Why is it not possible to use "nil" any more in init files ?

[Stefan Monnier]

> Thanks Stefan for this explanation.  So IIUC that trick broke some correct
> .emacs in order to magically fix some broken ones?

Yup, and not just for .emacs files but also for calls made from one
package to another.  Basically, experience shows that *toggling* is
very rarely what we want when writing the Elisp code.

99.9% of calls of the form (foo-mode nil) or (foo-mode) either were
meant to enable the mode (the vast majority), or were meant to disable
the mode (a minority, but not an insignificant one).

A small proportion of those calls were correct (because the context
made sure that the mode was always either enabled or disabled), but
after yet-another bug report of someone not understanding why his
font-lock was not enabled in such and such circumstance, I decided that
it was time to break the small proportion of those minority cases which
expected (and with reason) the call to disable the mode.

This change was made more than 5 years ago, and it hasn't caused much of
a ruckus and even fewer bug reports, so I think I made the right call.


        Stefan