Re: Support (or not) for Emacs 21, and XEmacs

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

On Apr 16, 2010, at 12:26 PM, Carsten Dominik wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have made a test version of Org with the compatibility code

I am such a bad writer.

I mean with that compatibility code *removed*!

- Carsten


> for XEmacs and without some of the left-over compatibility
> code for Emacs 21.
>
> I would appreciate if some people could check out the
> `remove-compatibility-code' branch from repo.or.cz and report back
> if they experience any problems with Emacs 22, 23, and 24, either
> during compilation or while running.
>
> Problems with Emacs 21 and XEmacs do not have to be reported.... :-)
>
> Thank you very much
>
> - Carsten
>
> On Apr 14, 2010, at 10:15 AM, Carsten Dominik wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I am, once again, reconsidering support for Emacs 21 and XEmacs
>> in Org-mode.
>>
>> Supporting older versions of Emacsen does make the code in
>> Org-mode more complex, needs time to rewrite or copy features
>> that do exist in newer versions of Emacs.  Also, it slows down
>> the process of updating the version of Org-mode distributed
>> with Emacs, because the compatibility code makes it often hard to
>> comply with Emacs rules and practices.
>>
>> What I would like to do is the following.
>>
>> We are now working toward release 7.0 of Org-mode, which will
>> hopefully see full integration of org-babel.  I am considering
>> to make Org-mode version 6.35 the last version of Org-mode
>> supporting XEmacs and Emacs 21.  That would mean that I would
>> still fix critical bugs in 6.35 and keep that package on the
>> website indefinitely.  So people stuck with Emacs 21 and XEmacs do
>> have an excellent version of Org-mode available.  Git users will
>> be able indefinitely to select this version of Org-mode to support
>> and Emacs 21 or XEmacs installation.
>>
>> For version 7.0 I would then not only stop actively supporting
>> these older Emacsen, but I would actually remove some of the
>> twisted code that has accumulated over the years in order to
>> support older versions.  Important examples are all the
>> stuff in org-compat, but also key bindings and other stuff.  There
>> are about 100 cases of (featurep 'xemacs) in the sources, and many
>> other places where I have to check for the availablility of a
>> specific feature or function.
>>
>> If you object to such a development, please step into this
>> discussion.
>>
>> - Carsten
>>
>>
>>
>
> - Carsten
>
>
>

- Carsten