bug#49424: 27.2; Misdocumented default initialisation file

[Phil Sainty]

On 2021-07-08 05:58, Peter Oliver wrote:
> If we’re making a change, here, it may be worth going all the way:
> create $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/emacs if it and ~/.emacs.d don’t exist, and
> hence use $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/emacs/init.el when creating a new
> initialisation file.

I don't agree with doing that.

The current XDG_CONFIG_HOME behaviour is opt-in, and I think it should
stay that way, partly so that the default behaviour is consistent across
systems, but also because I think the suggested behaviour would cause
widespread confusion from users who run Emacs before creating their
~/.emacs.d directory, and then can't figure out why their new config
isn't working.  (IIRC that is exactly what happened with the original
XDG_CONFIG_HOME support code before it was adjusted to ensure that it
was opt-in behaviour, despite the fact that you needed to be running
a pre-release build of Emacs to be affected and therefore likely to
have a better understanding of things than the average newcomer.)


-Phil