Re: Tentative diagnosis of TMM's problem. [Re: Enabling Transient Mark Mode by default]

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hi, Richard!

On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 04:16:37AM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
>     Strongly agreed!  It should be obvious, really - using Emacs with
>     TMM is so radically different from using it without, that it's
>     difficult to imagine anybody not being unhappy with (at least) one
>     of these options.

> I am surprised by that statement.  With mark-even-if-inactive set, the
> difference is small.  What difference are you talking about that you
> think is "radical"?

In Transient Mark Mode, you have two modes (in the sense of vi's "command
mode" and "insert mode"), and the behaviour of many common key sequences
differs greatly between them.  Standard Emacs doesn't otherwise have
modes in that sense.

Perhaps less radical, Emacs has traditionally been a peaceful editor - it
doesn't flash, it doesn't bang, doesn't explode dialogue boxes (or even
dialog boxes ;-) in your face, it doesn't thrust menus into your text
when you use a key sequence, and so on.  I suppose isearch lazy
highlighting is an exception here, but that hardly invalidates the rule.

Transient Mark Mode, where massive refontification can occur for the
simplest of actions makes Emacs significantly more intrusive.  I don't
think this should be done by default.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).