Re: Enhancements to "minor-mode-map-alist" functionality.

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    Consider a keymap K which has a binding for [C-x 1],
    a keymap P which has a binding for [C-x 2], and
    a keymap S which has a binding for [C-x 3].

    Keymap S has a filter which means that it is only active
    if mark-active is non-nil.

    Now, we want keymap P to be a parent map for K, and
    we want S to be a submap of K.

Why do we want that?  What job are you trying to do?

    With my proposal, C-x 1, C-x 2, and (if mark-active) C-x 3 will all
    work seemlessly

What does it mean for them to "work"?  Once again, what job
are you trying to do?  It is not useful to address this backwards.

We must not introduce more complex features merely because they look
appealing in the abstract.  We have to look at the job first, then
determine how much complexity is really *necessary*.

    > What problem is it meant to solve?

    Multiple keymap inheritance as well as conditional keymaps.

Multiple inheritance is a mess.  We should avoid it if we can.

    > There is no way to implement such a restriction,
    > and users don't generally know which functions do consing.

    This is not intended to be a user feature, it is for package
    writers. 

I know which users this feature is for.  The users of Emacs Lisp
don't generally know which functions do consing.  That can change.

    I didn't think we should `implement' the restriction -- simply
    document it.

No way.

This proposal includes many aspects each of which is very undesirable.
The entire approach is wrong.  We need to start by looking at the actual
problem that we actually need to solve.