[slime-devel] More features by default

[Sidney Markowitz]

Luis Oliveira wrote, On 28/12/08 11:53 PM:
> You think slime-fancy shouldn't be loaded by default, yet you make it so
> in your plugin? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I should preface my remarks by saying that I don't think that this is a
very important decision. Even though I am stating a preference, I don't
think that it would be a bad thing for the Slime maintainers to decide
it your way. So please put my arguments in that context.

>From the perspective of Slime as a project I don't think that
unsupported contrib modules should be loaded by default. If the
maintainers want to structure Slime so that it is in separate modules
that are loaded by (slime-setup) then those modules should go into some
other directory than contrib and be officially maintained. I take it
that REPL was moved into contrib not just because of a refactoring of
the code into separate pieces, but also because it is not being
maintained as part of SLIME. Putting it into contrib and not loading it
with the default call to slime-setup makes it clear what its status is.

That is a separate issue from how the Aquamacs developers choose to
configure an optional Slime plugin for Aquamacs.

> I fail to see how that's confusing, really. Particularly if it's
> documente. That's how default settings work. That's what 'by default'
> means, IIUC.

The confusing part is in loading non-maintained code that potentially
could disappear if it gets out of sync with Slime itself. I don't think
that loading anything from contrib should be default behaviour.

> You are free to keep an explicit contrib list in your Aquamacs setup. My
> proposal doesn't harm that freedom at all.

Yes, I agree that the choice of defaults for slime-setup would not
affect how Aquamacs sets up its Slime optional plugin. That's part of
why I say that I don't consider this a crucial decision either way. But
that also means, I think, that it makes it more a matter of aesthetics
and the personal inclinations of the Slime maintainers.

If most software distributions that include Slime do package it to load
the same certain contrib modules by default and there are people
maintaining those modules with whom the mainline Slime maintainers are
willing to work and to whom they are willing to give commit privileges,
then it would make sense to move them from contrib into some other
directory and load them with (slime-setup).

 -- sidney