Learn Emacs: use defadvice to modify functions

It's a risk yes, but I've been using it this way for about a year and encountered no problems.

I'm thinking of TIMTOWTDI, and that perhaps many people don't know about defadvice.

I also love hooks.

It is dangerous in theory, yeah. Much less so if you're a package like https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Emacspeak which, while almost entirely defadvice from what I've heard, doesn't modify any existing state.

It's a little dangerous, but Emacs users have been making numbered backups automatically since before there was RCS. Since before there was GNU Emacs actually.

It is dangerous only if you change the function's interface.

Why? Its not like its a pure function. The change puts Emacs in a different state than with the original behavior...