same-window-buffer-names and -regexps

[Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu>]

There seems to be an obvious anomaly in the behavior of the
display-buffer - same-window-buffer-names (-regexps) mechanism.  It
works fine for commands such as M-x shell and the like, but what sense
does it make for C-x 4 C-o to behave specially for the buffers in
question?  For these buffers, C-x 4 C-o behaves like C-x b.  If that
were the behavior the user wanted, (s)he would clearly use the easier
and more logical command C-x b.  Same thing for the command C-o in the
buffer menu, which for these buffers is identical to f.  The effect on
C-c C-f in ielm is even worse.  I guess there must be several other
additional situations like this.  This behavior is both inconvenient
and extremely confusing.  Somebody who does not know about these two
variables does not stand the slightest chance of figuring out the
cause of all this strange behavior.

Setting the two variables to nil is no solution, because then M-x
shell and friends malfunction.

One solution would be to have M-x shell and friends check these
variables (instead of having display-buffer do that directly) and
then have these functions pass an appropriate flag to display-buffer.

Sincerely,

Luc.