You may want to change your example to a core emacs function

[Trevoke]

It's better to communicate with open source projects about your needs than to isolate yourself with your changes (which also means, if you need to advise a core emacs function, it may be worth bringing it up to emacs devel) - and packages can change much faster than emacs itself, which may make the patching unnecessary.

[raxod502]

Do you think that using a different example would address your concern? It sounds like you just do not believe it makes sense to use el-patch at all.

[Trevoke]

It's not quite true - after all, why would we have defadvice if we were not intended to make changes?

I have a minor mode where I'm using defadvice three times and I think it might be nice to see how el-patch would make this code better: https://github.com/Trevoke/sqlup-mode.el/blob/master/sqlup-mode.el#L241

[raxod502]

Okay, but I still don't really understand what you're suggesting and why the change would be an improvement.

I would also point out that the three examples you linked would not really benefit from using el-patch. The point of el-patch is to cover cases in which advice fails. (I will point out, however, that I think nadvice.el should be preferred over advice.el these days.)

[Trevoke]

I'm completely unaware of nadvice, so I'll go take a look. (oh it's that new pattern - cool, I'll make the switch). To clarify my original point: if we decide to make customizations to a provided package without closing the loop to the original package, we kill a part of the drive that makes F/OSS work, so we should avoid it. Packages thrive from external input, and if it becomes necessary to make such changes to a package, we should follow that up with a communication with the project to see if it can accommodate our needs (and maybe even with a pull request). So basically, my concern is with the secondary meaning that can be extracted from the readme - it's OK to not contribute to open source.

…

On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 6:53 PM Radon Rosborough ***@***.***> wrote: Okay, I still don't really understand what you're suggesting and why the change would be an improvement. I would also point out that the three examples you linked would not really benefit from using el-patch. The point of el-patch is to cover cases in which advice fails. (I will point out, however, that I think nadvice.el should be preferred over advice.el these days.) — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#32 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEJSV7987SuuzyPBNYTCqTlKmWUWoTZks5usM99gaJpZM4YMyZk> .

[raxod502]

Would you please provide a pull request which implements the change you are asking for?

[raxod502]

I don't want to be so prescriptive about how people interact with the open-source community. How do you feel about the wording in the above commit, instead?

[Fuco1]

Of course, in an ideal world, el-patch would not be necessary,
because the original definition of the function in Emacs or in one of
its packages could just be fixed.

This statement makes no sense to me. el-patch as I see it is not a way to /fix/ functions but primarily to /customize/ them. Many of my workflows are so ridiculous upstream would never even dream of accepting them. I have thousands of lines of redefined functions from org mode, dired, ediff... and I don't think tens of thousands of people would like to use my "fixed" versions.

I see this package as a complement to advices where you can go into the guts of the function and still change it in a controlled manner.

it's OK to not contribute to open source.

It is perfectly OK not to contribute to open source. The vast majority of people don't and they are good people ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[raxod502]

This thread is being closed automatically by Tidier because it is labeled with "waiting on response" and has not seen any activity for 90 days. But don't worry—if you have any information that might advance the discussion, leave a comment and the thread may be reopened :)