Re: Is this a bug, the esoteric Elisp way?

[Noam Postavsky]

On Tue, 10 Sep 2019 at 14:42, Shyam Nath <shyam@shyam.id.au> wrote:

> So `(setq electric-indent-mode nil)` disables it, and I thought it also 
> disables all tabbing; this seems disabled in Elisp, but not plain text files, 
> and http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_tabs_space_indentation_setup.html 
> patches it. The documentation for electric-indent-mode says "If called from 
> Lisp, enable the mode if ARG is omitted or nil.", but nil disables it; 
> /implementation|typographical/ bug.

The documentation you refer to is about the function, i.e.,
`(electric-indent-mode)` or `(electric-indent-mode nil)` will enable
the mode. Use `(electric-indent-mode -1)` to disable it.

Using setq on the variable won't do the right thing, as mentioned in
its documentation:

Setting this variable directly does not take effect;
either customize it (see the info node ‘Easy Customization’)
or call the function ‘electric-indent-mode’.