Re: [VETO] Support package-prefix and fix mail-locking in configure

>>>>> "Stephen" == Stephen J Turnbull <[email protected]> writes:

>>>>> "ms" == Michael Sperber <[email protected]> writes:

ms> We've been going around that question for years: I did try to
ms> say just that in the XEmacs manual, but somehow it's too
ms> unclear for people to understand.  So I really need help in
ms> finding out specifically where the documentation I wrote falls
ms> down.  A good start would be why the above paragraph didn't
ms> answer your question.

Stephen> Well, for one thing, it's not the way I think about the packages.  I
Stephen> can parse it, and with a fair amount of work apply it.  But it doesn't
Stephen> make sense and I have to go through the same effort every time.  It's
Stephen> unnatural to me, and I think it's unnatural for almost all XEmacs
Stephen> developers and users.

And round and round we go.  You complain about the documentation, I
ask for clarification, you complain about the design, I try to explain
the design, you complain about the documentation, and we go back to
step 1.  That's exactly what we've been doing for years.  It just
isn't helpful information for me, if I want to provide something
that'll make more sense to you.  That may very well be a failing of
mine, but so there.

XEmacs can deal with the packages in a different location from the
rest just fine: that's why `emacs-roots' is a list, and not a string.
Maybe it isn't configurable in the way you want, but the conceptual
machinery is all there.  Maybe that's how we need to attack the
problem.

I'm getting the impression that the conceptual idea you have in mind
is reflected in the software, but there's some failure of
communication.  But to fix it, you really need to point out what piece
of information is missing, or what piece of documentation is not clear
to you, or how a piece of documentation seems to say something other
than what you would like to see.  From a paragraph like this ...

Stephen> Well, for one thing, it's not the way I think about the packages.  I
Stephen> can parse it, and with a fair amount of work apply it.  But it doesn't
Stephen> make sense and I have to go through the same effort every time.  It's
Stephen> unnatural to me, and I think it's unnatural for almost all XEmacs
Stephen> developers and users.

... I can't figure out where the problem is.  Am I saying something
clearly that you don't like?  Is it unclear because it doesn't agree
with your idea of how things should be?  Is it just plain unclear?
I would really like to make things better for you, but I'm pretty
clueless on how to go about it.

-- 
Cheers =8-} Mike
Friede, Völkerverständigung und überhaupt blabla