Better startup error handling (was: proposal to make null string handling more emacs-y)

[Stefan Monnier]

> Moreover, if Emacs is clumsy at handling errors during startup (and I
> agree that it is), that's a problem that should be addressed generally

If someone wants to attack this, I'm all ears.

The way I see it, we should ideally be able to load the .emacs in such
a way that an error doesn't prevent the rest of the file from being
loaded, and the error should be clearly signaled to the user with some
kind of line-number information.

In my wildest dreams I also imagine that we'd check for obsolete vars,
hooks, and functions.  Maybe even give the same kind of feedback that
the byte-compiler gives about the code.


        Stefan