Re: strange code in ediff-hook.el

[Dan Nicolaescu]

address@hidden (Michael Kifer) writes:

  > > address@hidden (Michael Kifer) writes:
  > > 
  > >   > > Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
  > >   > > 
  > >   > >   > > From: Dan Nicolaescu <address@hidden>
  > >   > >   > > Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:11:15 -0800
  > >   > >   > > 
  > >   > >   > > 
  > >   > >   > > Is this code in ediff-hook.el useful:
  > >   > >   > > 
  > >   > >   > > (if purify-flag
  > >   > >   > >     () ; if dumping, autoloads are set up in loaddefs.el
  > >   > >   > >   ;; if the user decides to load this file, set up autoloads
  > >   > >   > >   ;; compare files and buffers
  > >   > >   > >   (autoload 'ediff "ediff" "Compare two files." t)
  > >   > >   > >  [....]
  > >   > >   > > 
  > >   > >   > > It's hard to see why... What am I missing? 
  > >   > 
  > >   > This is from the times when ediff was not part of emacs. It is also 
useful
  > >   > for debugging (if the menus will ever be changed, which last time 
happened
  > >   > years ago).
  > > 
  > > So you'd not object if those autoloads are removed? 
  > 
  > Why remove? I said it is useful for debugging if the menues will need to be
  > changed.

When adding a function to the global menu, one has to make sure that
either the function is defined by default or it is autoloaded.  Why
keep 100+ lines of redundant code for something that is well known and
pretty easy to check (just check if the new menu actually works). 


  > >   > >   > > Incidentally all ediff*.el files have some strange 
require/featurep/load
  > >   > >   > > code.  Is that stuff really needed?
  > >   > 
  > >   > Are you talking about the compiler pacifiers? This reduces the number 
of
  > >   > compile-time warnings. At least used to.
  > > 
  > > There are other ways of avoiding warnings (nowadays we zero byte-compile
  > > warnings when bootstrapping emacs).  I'll get rid of that code.
  > 
  > What does it have to do with bootstrapping? 

Bootstrapping tends to show more warnings that when compiling interactively.

  > I am talking about debugging.  When there are many warnings due to
  > some files not being loaded, it becomes hard to spot real problems.

Please explain why won't just using `require' work? (or (eval-when-compile 
(require )))

BTW, when trying to removed that type of code, it showed that 
the defsubst ediff-get-session-number-at-pos is used before being
defined.  So all that loading can hides other bugs...

  > > Also is this autoload still needed? 
  > > 
  > > ;; This autoload is useless in Emacs because ediff-hook.el is dumped with
  > > ;; emacs, but it is needed in XEmacs
  > > ;;;###autoload
  > > (if (featurep 'xemacs)
  > >     (progn
  > >       (defvar ediff-menu
  > >       '("Compare"
  > >         ["Two Files..."  ediff-files t]
  > >           ["Two Buffers..." ediff-buffers t]
  > >     [snip...]
  > 
  > 
  > That seems to be not necessary any more.

Then, please remove it.  There are 2 instances of the same comment.