RE: [External] : Re: Deleting functions and variables obsolete since 24.1--24.3

[Drew Adams]

> The Great Deletator Stefan Kangas writes:
> 
> > The next step is the above items, and anything obsoleted in 24.2 and
> > 24.3.
> 
> Please see the scratch/obsolete-24.3 branch.  If there are no protests,
> I will push it to master in a month or so.
> 
> 1. These variables in window.el remain doing, help welcome:
> 
>     display-buffer-reuse-frames
>     special-display-buffer-names
>     special-display-frame-alist
>     special-display-function
>     special-display-regexps


I *STRONGLY* object to removing any of the
`special-display' user options and their support.
They should never have been deprecated.  I don't
want to see them ever be abandoned.

It's fine for any user to (try to) use
`display-buffer-alist' to accomplish, in a
complicated way, what `special-display' does simply.

It's wrong to get rid of `special-display'.  I use
it all day, every day, and my code uses it.

IF you create `display-buffer' user options that
unequivocally reproduce what `special-display' does
so simply, THEN we can talk about getting rid of
`special-display'.

That's never been done - in spite of the cavalier
punt statement to just "use `display-buffer-alist'
instead", added by the deprecation to each of the
`special-display' doc strings.

If you can't do it, how do you expect users to?

`special-display' does everything I need that it
says it does, and it does it simply.

`special-display' makes no claim or pretense to do
what `display-buffer-alist' does.  And the latter
doesn't provide what the former provides.  (Can
you make it provide that feature?)

Leave it alone.  Adding `display-buffer-alist' was
a _good_ thing - thank you Martin.  Deprecating,
let alone removing, `special-display' would be an
atrocity.

Removing `special-display' does _not_ "need doing".
Take a break - do something constructive instead.