Re: org-assert-version considered harmful

[Ihor Radchenko]

Tom Gillespie <tgbugs@gmail.com> writes:

> Without going into too much detail, an orgstrap shebang block is
> forced to use the system installed version of org because it is
> intended to work in the absence of an init.el file, or before an
> init.el file can ever be loaded.

Once you load built-in Org partially, attempting to load libraries from
newer Org version is a recipe for a disaster (random failures due to
changes in the newer Org).

> This means that if a newer version of org is installed then no code
> can ever run again after that package is visible on the load path
> because loading the newer version of org will immediately cause an
> error when something (e.g. ob-python) tries to require org-macs,
> terminating the execution of the orgstrap block prematurely. There is
> no simple workaround, and there is no guaranteed workaround aside from
> going to great lengths to only ever use the builtin version of org.

If you absolutely need to load older version of Org without affecting
user's choice to use newer version, you may consider unloading Org
first. See `unload-feature'.

Ideally, Emacs itself should provide ways to deal with multiple package
versions.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>