Re: Easy configuration of a site-lisp directory

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 22:10:22 +0700
> Cc: Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com>, Clément Pit-Claudel 
> <cpitclaudel@gmail.com>, 
>       Emacs developers <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> 
> > But the .el.gz files that Emacs displays _are_ "hackable", in the
> > sense that you can modify it and then save the results.  Right?
> 
> Right… technically.
> 
> 0. I[*] have an itch and go to scratch it. M-. takes me to an .el.gz
> somewhere in /usr/share/emacs.
> 1. I want to start hacking but the buffer is read-only because (x): my
> regular user does not have write access to system-wide
> platform-independent files.
> 1a. I can switch to the hackable /home/me/src/emacs/lisp/{filename}.el
> right away while lamenting that M-. did not take me right there, or
> 1b. I can press C-x C-q to remove the readonlyness. For the sake of
> argument, let’s see where this leads.
> 2. I make a change and want to save it. I cannot because (x).
> 2a. Again, at this point, I can C-x C-w
> /home/you/src/emacs/lisp/{filename}.el, cursing under my breath.
> Alternatively,
> 2b. Since I have admin rights, I can take ownership or loosen access
> rights on the file so I can save it. Again, let’s say I do this just
> to prove a point.
> 3. I finish my work and want to do a self-review before committing.
> But /usr/share/emacs is not under version control and I did not make a
> backup and now I still have to go to my git clone.

This is entirely unrelated to the fact that the *.el files are
compressed, right?  You'd get the same results if they were installed
uncompressed, right?  Thus, the original question "why people care
about the fact it's a .el.gz file" still stands.

If we now change the subject, as you did, and talk about the fact that
the installed *.el files are not modifiable by your user, I will claim
that it's a mis-configuration of your system's access rights and/or
a problem with the way Emacs was installed, because if you _want_ to
hack the sources of an installed Emacs, you should make sure you have
write access to those sources.  If all else fails (e.g., you need to
work on a system where you don't call the shots wrt access rights),
you can always install Emacs under your home directory.  Right?