Re: Problems while trying to load feature

[Nick Dokos <ndokos@gmail.com>]

"Charles R (Charlie) Martin" <chasrmartin@gmail.com> writes:

> This is a problem I’ve noticed as well. Now, I am a programmer — my
> code or it’s descendants is still in the distribution — I do update
> org mode regularly, and I get messages when I start up Emacs about
> Org mode files that can’t be loaded. I wouldn’t be surprised if the
> cause is this renaming. But honestly I stopped having time to hack
> emacs 30 years ago. Wouldn’t it be desirable if changes that aren’t
> backward-compatible included some kind of assistance for users? 
>

You probably don't want to hear this, but you will have to figure out
what those messages are telling you and fix the problems. At best,
they might be innocuous: your init file might be trying to load things
that don't exist any more. At worst, you may be running a mixed
installation: you might be loading things from various versions of Org
mode that might coexist on your system(s) (depending on how exactly
you install Org mode: if you use the version that is bundled with
emacs *only* you should not have any problems; but if you install a
more recent one from ELPA or from git, you should be careful). If you
encounter problems after the initial load, you might have a mixed
installation. See https://orgmode.org/worg/org-faq.html#mixed-install for more
details on how to check. Mixed installations are an unending source of
problems and need to be taken care of.

I install new versions of emacs and Org mode fairly frequently (every
couple of months) at which point I restart emacs to see whether any
such problems crop up. If there are, I fix them right then and there,
until I can get a clean restart. If it's not obvious, I take a look
through the etc/ORG-NEWS file, which you should have locally, but in a
pinch you can look for it online:

    https://code.orgmode.org/bzg/org-mode/src/master/etc/ORG-NEWS

In particular, this is the best place for assistance with backward
incompatibilities that you mentioned above. Assuming you know which
release you came from and which release you are going to, look through
the sections describing them and all intermediate releases, to see
what backward incompatibilites were introduced and what suggested
solutions there are. As a last resort, you can always ask here. In
general, I find that fixing these problems asap is better for my
sanity.

Cleaning up your init file to get rid of the (now) useless loads is
also a good idea (even though they are innocuous): init files tend to
accumulate junk (mine has been doing that for 30 years), so getting
rid of old cruft is, for me, another essential activity to maintain a
semblance of sanity.

My $0.02, YMMV, etc.

-- 
Nick

"There are only two hard problems in computer science: cache
invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors." -Martin Fowler