From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Dmitry Gutov Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.bugs Subject: bug#20322: 25.0.50; indent-tabs-mode should default to nil Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2015 02:24:00 +0200 Message-ID: <568475A0.20609@yandex.ru> References: <861tjn3069.fsf@yandex.ru> <552D20B6.8030005@yandex.ru> <83mw2abul3.fsf@gnu.org> <552D34BC.4090806@yandex.ru> <83h9sibt0q.fsf@gnu.org> <552D7796.2090109@yandex.ru> <567EA3EB.7030007@yandex.ru> <5683C498.9060300@yandex.ru> <5683CAD0.6020609@yandex.ru> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1451521523 20717 80.91.229.3 (31 Dec 2015 00:25:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2015 00:25:23 +0000 (UTC) Cc: 20322@debbugs.gnu.org To: John Wiegley Original-X-From: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Dec 31 01:25:12 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aER3G-0000Wn-SB for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 31 Dec 2015 01:25:11 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54193 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aER3G-0002Ba-6C for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Dec 2015 19:25:10 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:57179) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aER3C-0002BT-Ef for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 30 Dec 2015 19:25:07 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aER38-00053B-Dw for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 30 Dec 2015 19:25:06 -0500 Original-Received: from debbugs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.43]:43136) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aER38-000537-7z for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 30 Dec 2015 19:25:02 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-debbugs by debbugs.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.84) (envelope-from ) id 1aER38-00073U-3r for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 30 Dec 2015 19:25:02 -0500 X-Loop: help-debbugs@gnu.org Resent-From: Dmitry Gutov Original-Sender: "Debbugs-submit" Resent-CC: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Resent-Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2015 00:25:02 +0000 Resent-Message-ID: Resent-Sender: help-debbugs@gnu.org X-GNU-PR-Message: followup 20322 X-GNU-PR-Package: emacs X-GNU-PR-Keywords: Original-Received: via spool by 20322-submit@debbugs.gnu.org id=B20322.145152145127044 (code B ref 20322); Thu, 31 Dec 2015 00:25:02 +0000 Original-Received: (at 20322) by debbugs.gnu.org; 31 Dec 2015 00:24:11 +0000 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:50738 helo=debbugs.gnu.org) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84) (envelope-from ) id 1aER2I-000728-Vs for submit@debbugs.gnu.org; Wed, 30 Dec 2015 19:24:11 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-wm0-f51.google.com ([74.125.82.51]:38891) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84) (envelope-from ) id 1aER2G-00071v-Pp for 20322@debbugs.gnu.org; Wed, 30 Dec 2015 19:24:09 -0500 Original-Received: by mail-wm0-f51.google.com with SMTP id b14so66737928wmb.1 for <20322@debbugs.gnu.org>; Wed, 30 Dec 2015 16:24:08 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=sender:subject:to:references:cc:from:message-id:date:user-agent :mime-version:in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=ju9vm8uw/VBvqLchasPFxk2ngkocO/Gm/pkKZdVOEwM=; b=0VGYM0BHdZb9le9vzBIzD5u2sYperR2si4Z7MHfSTkB939z9WWel97nzzmSH69kiCL X6+ARzEv1Xbwkn6FYzbEiZy++JuYTfVhhofWneA0LE8pxEEGMLrIHKn2Oc72cAFqqzZ4 42mCAQW5b8vXuvWB1SHP/yaNvysEjEK2vPC2FMS/Pcjmh36IJNPa1qZMEeHOQsdRTPJv bA3ikNzhKwqaHiFf2Mp8mabDZFqzHwszd3YEVw2/POMWCX48Nm36dRpfJS1/K0LBOcUS V5hYLf+4sBgLRaLAPN4hIQTfFHb3iMrwRQPvwh1l6vhTPcE2ycSoUPnhMbl6yjlyKZdK CUhA== X-Received: by 10.28.88.210 with SMTP id m201mr58209827wmb.76.1451521443045; Wed, 30 Dec 2015 16:24:03 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.2] ([185.105.175.24]) by smtp.googlemail.com with ESMTPSA id 67sm13203479wmp.20.2015.12.30.16.24.01 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Wed, 30 Dec 2015 16:24:01 -0800 (PST) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:42.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/42.0 In-Reply-To: X-BeenThere: debbugs-submit@debbugs.gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 208.118.235.43 X-BeenThere: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org List-Id: "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.bugs:111053 Archived-At: On 12/30/2015 09:18 PM, John Wiegley wrote: > The longer we wait? This has the default (according to Git) since at least > 1991, or 25 years now. Probably much longer, since that commit is just there > to begin the Git history. The question is, do we believe it'll have to be changed eventually. If not now, then maybe in 10-20 years' time. > What about the needs of existing users who'll become confused by our changing > such an established default on them? What's so confusing about it? They'll see the new behavior (or read NEWS), look it up, and customize one variable, if they really want to. Unlike new users, they might know the variable already, and they certainly know how to customize. We do change defaults from time to time. Maybe usually not 25-year-old defaults, but there are not that many of them left anyway. > When did pleasing the expectations of new > users become a driving force for these types of changes? You're saying this like making the barrier of entry low is a bad thing. I also want 'emacs -Q' to behave better, and I want to be more comfortable in recommending Emacs to other people. > We can also expect > new users to learn how Emacs does things, too. indent-tabs-mode is not "how". It's "what" Emacs does, for predominantly historical reasons. Learning about it isn't going to be gratifying, unlike many other aspects of Emacs. > What I would *like* is for tabs to insert spaces. But a change like this > affects far more people than just the target audience. We need an excellent > reason to do this. We don't actually know how many people it's going to be a problem for, do we? For all we know, most of the existing users already use spaces (the third-party community has standardized on them). And some fraction will be indifferent to the change. There must also be some fraction of users who are not aware of this variable, who "mess up" indentation when they edit some existing code bases. Statistically speaking, we'll be doing them a favor as well. Should we poll Reddit users? Only asking on the mailing lists, I'm afraid, would unfairly skew the results in favor of _real_ old-timers. If it were up to me, we'd try changing the default during the development cycle of Emacs 26, and see how many complaints we get.