starter-kit-python fails to load in Emacs 24.3.1 about emacs24-starter-kit HOT 9 CLOSED

(At least) version 6.0.10 of python-mode installed from ELPA (which starter-kit-python seems to seek out and install if it's not installed) requires you have abbrev-file-name set. This could be the source of your problem. I also use starter-kit-python and don't have the problem that your'e describing, but I have abbrev-file-name set...

This doesn't strike me as an issue with starter kit, but rather (perhaps) an issue with python-mode...

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Philosophically speaking I feel that starter-kit-python should take reasonable measures to work around upstream bugs until they're fixed. Isn't that partially what it means to provide sane defaults?

Practically speaking, where do people usually put their abbrev files? I've never used them before (it's been a while since I've used python-mode and it worked without them last time I tried). Would it be reasonable for starter-kit to just do something like (setq abbrev-file-name "~/.emacs.d/abbrev_defs")?

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Actually, setting abbrev-file-name like so doesn't solve the problem anyway. I went through and typed in the parts of starter-kit-python.el that could possibly fail line by line and while it issues the warning about abbrev-file-name when you require python-mode it actually fails with the "Don't know how to make a localized variable an alias" bit when you require ipython. That does sound like an upstream bug, I'll go bug the ipython folks about it.

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Rather than typing things in line-by-line you should be able to execute the code block by block with C-c C-c (which should be somewhat easier).

I believe Emacs just recently switched implementations of python.el, so it may be hairy for a while depending on whether you are using Emacs version 24.1 (old python.el) or 24.3 and up (brand new python.el).

I don't use python myself, but I'm happy to commit any fixes to starter-kit-python.el.

thanks,

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I keep my abbrev_defs file in the same place as I keep my user-host specific init file: I use startup kit on more than one host (I keep it on Dropbox and then mount it on more than one machine), and so it's handy to have some files of init code that's user-host specific (like, for example, abbreviation files, desktop files, and so forth).

And of course you're right -- starter kit probably could benefit by seeking to do what it can to harden itself in the face of potential issues.

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@eschulte Okay, so it seems that python-mode supports using IPython as the inferior python now, and as far as I can tell the IPython mode isn't actively maintained anymore - this is a bug that's been around for a while now. If I just strip out the IPython part from starter-kit-python and have it always use python-mode (which does work) would you commit that?

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Thanks to pajmullaney for isolating the problem. Commit 6750a72 should fix this issue.

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A brief browse about led me to this thread on patching iPython.el (ipython/ipython#1015); there, it seems to suggest that python.el now supports the ipython interpreter, so there's no need to even try using ipython.el any more... I don't know if this is precisely relevant here, or not.

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oh, in that case I'll just remove that section. Sorry @pajmullaney, it looks like I just should have merged your pull request to begin with.

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