From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: delete-selection-mode as default (WAS: Some developement questions) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2018 18:16:15 +0000 Message-ID: <20180910181615.GA4829@ACM> References: <83k1nxvm5j.fsf@gnu.org> <87sh2ih0bp.fsf@fastmail.fm> <770f48a8-664a-40ae-8e03-19f6aad248b6@default> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1536603574 14364 195.159.176.226 (10 Sep 2018 18:19:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2018 18:19:34 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mutt/1.10.1 (2018-07-13) Cc: hw@adminart.net, spacibba@aol.com, Joost Kremers , Noam Postavsky , emacs-devel@gnu.org, Eli Zaretskii , phillip.lord@russet.org.uk To: Drew Adams Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 10 20:19:30 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1fzQmX-0003dO-7T for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 10 Sep 2018 20:19:29 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:53282 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fzQod-0007M5-Nq for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 10 Sep 2018 14:21:39 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:36547) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fzQna-0007Ej-Mz for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 10 Sep 2018 14:20:38 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fzQmA-00018W-VG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 10 Sep 2018 14:19:12 -0400 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:23368 helo=mail.muc.de) by eggs.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fzQmA-0000Lz-EK for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 10 Sep 2018 14:19:06 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 17242 invoked by uid 3782); 10 Sep 2018 18:18:31 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p5B14710D.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [91.20.113.13]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Mon, 10 Sep 2018 20:18:30 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 5481 invoked by uid 1000); 10 Sep 2018 18:16:15 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <770f48a8-664a-40ae-8e03-19f6aad248b6@default> X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: FreeBSD 9.x [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 193.149.48.1 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:229647 Archived-At: Hello, Drew. On Sun, Sep 09, 2018 at 15:24:30 -0700, Drew Adams wrote: > I agree that a poll of this list is not a great guide (for this question > and many others). > > Two questions should be considered: a) "Would leaving it off scare > > away potential new users?" and b) "Would turning it on obscure an > > option that is potentially useful to at least a subset of new users?" > I must have missed what that potentially useful option is. The option is having delete-selection-mode turned off, which is a useful option in itself. Actually, I'm not sure what the use of d-s-mode actually is. I don't recall anyone here advocating it on some intrinsic merits, only "because everybody else does it", which I've never found a convincing argument for anything in Emacs. > > On the other hand, if `delete-selection-mode` is on by default, > > most, if not all, new users will never even consider the > > possibility that Emacs has the option to disable it and that > > that might actually fit their workflow better. > This too hints at some advantage to having it off. > The only argument I saw here (unless I've forgotten already) > in favor of it being off (by default or not) is that when it is on > a user (new or old) can too easily accidentally delete text. > (Some added "irretrievably", but I haven't seen that claim > supported yet.) That was me, the complete phrase was "irretrievably lost" and I carefully outlined what was being lost and where. In summary, it was a carefully and painstakingly constructed region, and what was being lost by a careless movement key without was the point and mark of the highlighted region, not its contents. Furthermore it was in programs which aren't Emacs. > That advantage would seem to be something that would > most benefit new users, no? But the claim has been that > new users are more used to the on, not the off, behavior. > So again, what's the advantage to it being off? (It's not a > rhetorical question.) Is there really some useful "option" > that its being off offers? Does that give you additional > choice or control? Yes. It enables you to type onto the end of a (highlighted) region without being distracted by first having to do something to remove the highlighting, or more likely without first having to use `undo' to get your region back again, followed by unhighlighting it followed by typing the character you want to append. Personally, it scarcely affects me because I run with transient-mark-mode disabled, but I still occasionally get unwanted highlighting of regions for some reason. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).