Re: org-assert-version considered harmful

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

"Cook, Malcolm" <MEC@stowers.org> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I found this recent thread researching why my strategy for staying abreast with org head had started failing with invalid-function
> "org-assert-version"
>
> My strategy had been to build org initially with
>
> ` cd ~/.emacs.d && git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/emacs/org-mode.git &&   cd org-mode && make autoloads && make
> ` 
> and ensure this clone of org was picked up in my "~/.emacs.d/org-mode/lisp by including the following in my .init.el very early
> (right after bootstrapping the package system and use-package):
>
> (use-package 
>
>   :pin manual 
>
>   :load-path "~/.emacs.d/org-mode/lisp"
>
> )
>
> Then, when I occasionally wished to update org, I would
>
> `cd ~/.emacs.d/org-mode && git pull && make autoloads && make`
>
> Recently I started getting errors invalid-function "org-assert-version".
>
> Upon cursory reading of this thread I guessed that I could fix them by adding a `make clean` to my update mantra.
>
> It worked.
>
> Am I advised to do otherwise?  Is there a best/better practice?
>

I think it is good practice to always do make clean for any code you
build from sources yourself. There is a reason most Makefiles have a
'clean' target and when it comes to building software, starting from a
known clean state is critical. This can make the build slower, but for
small packages like org mode, the difference is insignificant. Always
safer to do make clean before make. Alternative approaches really only
necessary in larger and more complex source trees where there can be
significant time differences between full and incremental builds
(i.e. Emacs source tree has 4 different 'clean' targets; clean,
extraclean, distclean and bootstrap).