Re: Regression in `org-todo'

[Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com>]

Michael Strey <mstrey@strey.biz> wrote:

> Hi Bastien,
> 
> On Mon, Apr 02, 2012 at 05:03:04PM +0200, Bastien wrote:
> > ...
> > Please test against latest HEAD and tell me if your problem is still
> > here, it shouldn't.
>  
> I confirm that the problem is solved.  Thank you!
> 
> It's interesting to see how a bug in a module from the contrib path can
> cause strange behaviour of org-mode's core functions.
> 

There is no distinction between contrib and core. Once a module is
loaded (wherever it comes from), it is part of emacs and can cause all
kinds of damage: not just to org, but to the whole running emacs. It's
the price one pays for the convenience of dynamically loading code.  You
can avoid the danger by not loading modules, but then emacs becomes much
less interesting: after all, the "e" stands for "extensible".

And it's not just emacs: if you load a module in linux, it can muck
around with kernel memory and crash your system in no time at all.

The whole microkernel approach was an attempt to have that cake and eat
it too: safely loading modules (they run in a separate address space and
can't touch core kernel memory). Nobody has found a way to make it as
fast as a monolithic kernel though (although people have argued forever
about it: the Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate centered exactly around that
point - after you subtract the flaming).

Nick