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From: markl@ptt.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Re: autoloading [+ Proposal for new load function]
Message-ID: <8710292157.AA13980@allspice.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 16:57:00 EST
Article-I.D.: allspice.8710292157.AA13980
Posted: Thu Oct 29 16:57:00 1987
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In-Reply-To: ram-ashwin@YALE.ARPA's message of 29 Oct 87 17:45:01 GMT

Repository: PTT-test

Originating-Client: allspice


>This raises a question that I've had for a while -- what is the "standard"
>way of customizing Emacs packages?  

80% of the customizations you will do can be achived using existing hook
variables (rmail-mode-hook, text-mode-hook, rmail-summary-mode-hook,
scribe-mode-hook etc, ad nauseum), or option variables
(mail-use-rfc822, rmail-dont-reply-to-names,
rmail-yank-ignored-headers, etc) .  The only time you should have to
overlay existing function definitions with your own is if a fairly
minor function in a subsystem does not do exactly what you want it to do.
That should be fairly rare.  When that does happen, you should think
of a way to implement the desired behaviour as (1) an option controlled by
a variable value or (2) in a hook variable.  Then you can make your
changes, recompile the lisp file, and no-one will notice any changes
unless they set the appropriate option variable or hook variable.

markl

Internet: markl@ptt.lcs.mit.edu

Mark L. Lambert
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Distributed Systems Group

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