From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Gregory Heytings Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Suggested experimental test Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2021 14:15:26 +0000 Message-ID: <22aaf0fadd0894af49d9@heytings.org> References: <831ba60af0cbfdd95686@heytings.org> <87mtuxj8ue.fsf@gnus.org> <9088e12cb3de3d30abf1@heytings.org> <8735wnjsum.fsf@gnus.org> <83sg4n9jei.fsf@gnu.org> <271290d7aac58f2f9e96@heytings.org> <83czvr9hvc.fsf@gnu.org> <271290d7aa69bbcaa204@heytings.org> <83lfae8fbg.fsf@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="16678"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: larsi@gnus.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Tue Mar 23 15:19:38 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1lOhsg-0004De-E9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 23 Mar 2021 15:19:38 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50008 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lOhsf-0006yX-Eo for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 23 Mar 2021 10:19:37 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:42666) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lOhoi-0001fL-Lg for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Mar 2021 10:15:32 -0400 Original-Received: from heytings.org ([95.142.160.155]:42180) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lOhof-0000HV-Ky; Tue, 23 Mar 2021 10:15:32 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=heytings.org; s=20210101; t=1616508926; bh=EqGXizRb8HpOulrCEulsk5STruz9mQnKH6XZrKcyuPI=; h=Date:From:To:cc:Subject:In-Reply-To:Message-ID:References:From; b=EPdsfw1Ef3HhkjIfUHJkHe/Ad03WhRes19ifDMDltaIAstfXx9zTMXfPgpeH2aWm9 LljIiKC/GvCZKmy6bK2cPcah1aQWM5PuJYxoc7aGEYdhqyFzl2A486T0t8Msp46LHB fQnJaSLU3f/U9XJUBgB/6IZRCZ+f3HelfJoEQLTQSbtFwpb0sQXuDE5oY6kx9SuhUr dHmtmzOCU2FXoZiPukpzO7gkaw9hKvXS1sIWi3iZnGe182+UXXcq+RsBDYcLybbDms RwnlyA5h8GQjLMqMUboL4W6aQOW9RHOVy8wQR45qARBLj27Trw9pkt59koFqfLgPs8 C0+j7HeEuy6ZQ== In-Reply-To: <83lfae8fbg.fsf@gnu.org> Received-SPF: pass client-ip=95.142.160.155; envelope-from=gregory@heytings.org; helo=heytings.org X-Spam_score_int: -20 X-Spam_score: -2.1 X-Spam_bar: -- X-Spam_report: (-2.1 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, DKIM_SIGNED=0.1, DKIM_VALID=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_AU=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_EF=-0.1, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:266877 Archived-At: > > The difference is that 37 years have passed, and what was then a recent > keybinding in a program that had only a very limited user base is now a > keybinding many users have hardwired into their muscles. > > Another thing that changed is that there are nowadays many more active > contributors to Emacs who have their own (and different!) views on this > subject. See below. It was easy to make such decisions when Emacs was > an RCS repository on Richard's own machine, and he was the only one who > actually made changes. > > Yet another thing that's changed is that we nowadays have much fewer > free keys to work with, and many of those, while unbound globally, are > likely to be bound by some mode which is dear to someone. Part of the > reasons for the differences in opinions is that different people use > different modes and have different usage patterns, and thus keybinding > that are important to some might be unimportant (or even unknown, as > these discussions repeatedly show!) to others. How can we ever > significantly agree on removing or changing a keybinding under these > circumstances? > I see your points, but all this is rather sad, because it means that Emacs is forever locked by what looks very much like a historical accident. > > And one more thought, regarding the problem that 3rd-party packages > have: it can be argued that this is not our problem. Why should users > of Emacs that never heard of package P and will likely never use it pay > the price? why couldn't the developers of P solve the problem which is > in a way caused by P and whose solution benefits the users of P? Some > might think that shifting the price to the Emacs core is the wrong way > of dealing with the problem. The solution could be for P to use longer > key sequences (which usurps fewer keys on the top level), and if some > users of P are unhappy about that, then those users could rebind the > commands privately to any key they like. Think about it. > I'm not sure if the above ("this is not our problem") is your opinion, or if you just present a possible viewpoint you do not necessarily share. This has been discussed to death already, and (as you already know) IMO it is a problem that will have to be solved by Emacs itself, sooner or later. It does not apply to a single package P, or only to a few packages. Just type emacs -Q, M-x list-packages RET, RET. The package you now see ('ace-window') asks you to fiddle with your init file by adding a 'global-set-key' to it. The second package in the list ('ack') does the same. And so forth. That's not a problem for you and me, it is a problem for newcomers, and these 'global-set-key's should be done automatically, during the installation process. Do you know any other software that asks you to change a configuration file manually to use an extension package? As the author of Magit wrote when he added the "C-x g" global binding: "Some [...] beginners will initially have a low threshold for things not working out of the box and I don't want to (continue to) scare them off by immediately forcing them to learn how to add key bindings and what that even means. There's a lot of talk about making Emacs friendlier for beginners and this is a small step in that direction." [1] [1] https://github.com/magit/magit/pull/4237#issuecomment-723495053