[gentoo-user] Ebuild and emacs enough is enough

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

I'm not sure where to log this complaint, its not a real bug.

I've had about 6 or 7 emerges like emerge -v -u -D world break in the
middle somewhere because emacs has been called to byte compile or
whatever, however whoever is writing this stuff is calling emacs
WITHOUT taking the normal precations used by savvy emacs users.

That is, to call emacs with `emacs -q --no-site-file CMDS'.  This is
starndard practice to use when calling emacs during builds.

But on a 6-7 occassions, the last in the middle of emerge -v -u -D
--newuse world'

Not something you are likeley to set and watch for something like
this.  So you come back in hour and half to find its errored out in
the middle because emacs wasn't called with simple protective flags
like -q --no-site-file.

-q (don't use an .emacs init file)  --no-site-file (don't load any
 site-start.el files)

People might have code in either of those places that will cause emacs
to give unexpected output during build.

site-start.el is a tradition older than gentoo.  

Gentoo installs don't have it but many long term emacs users use this
file to set code for system wide stuff.  That is what it is for.
Emacs will load it before anything else (except `default.el') if it is
found in the path.  That is why it is wise to use --no-site-file when
calling emacs to bytecompile.

In my site-start.el I have code that causes emacs to tell me what it
is loading anytime a library or file is loaded.  That output can be
quite handy when debugging things emacs, but it breaks an emerge.

So unless I realize this particular emerge will call emacs and move
site-start.el out of the path it will be loaded and break the emerge
becasue someone didn't have sense enough to call emacs the standard
way:  emacs -q --no-site-file WHATEVER
   
Where do I need to take this complaint?

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