Just a quick update on yesterday’s post. Last night I took a few minutes to download, compile, and install Emacs 27.2. The compilation completed without any problems. Really, I don’t know why people go hunting all over the Web for binaries when it’s so simple to just compile it. Even on the Mac it’s easy. Here’s the magic spell that I use:
configure --with-ns CFLAGS="-g3 -O2 -I /usr/local/include/libxml2" make make install make install-info sudo mv nextstep/Emacs.app/ /Applications/
As usual, the hardest part was getting macOS to open the new Emacs. That seems to change with every OS release. The (current) short answer is here. A longer explanation is here.
I’ve been running 27.2 for less than 24 hours but haven’t had any problems. The flickering problem is either fixed or at least much better. There doesn’t appear to be any reason not to upgrade and, of course, you can always save the previous binary—or in macOS’s case, the Emacs.app object—for easy reversion. I do that every time but have never had to revert to the old version.