Re: An anonymous IRC user's opinion

[Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev>]

On 19/11/2024 21:01, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2024 19:56:05 +0200
>> Cc: johan.myreen@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> From: Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev>
>>
>>> Wasn't the idea that the user will tell us which files she wants to
>>> visit in each mode?
>>
>> I think we talked about making the option more granular (allowing to set
>> it not just to t, but to a list of modes). That will be easy to add.
>>
>> But specifying the files as well is news to me. Wouldn't users who want
>> that level of detail just go and customize auto-mode-alist instead?
> 
> Maybe so, but that is not always easy nor user-friendly: getting the
> regexps right is not trivial, many people make mistakes.

Even if that's true, I'm not sure what workflow you have in mind. My 
goal here is to fix the problem of ts modes installing themselves into 
auto-mode-alist (and major-mode-remap-defaults) haphazardly, with 
associated problems like https://debbugs.gnu.org/74339#38, for example.

If editing regexp directly is a difficulty, we could either add some 
helpers in the Customize interface, or a command which would prompt for 
mode, for file extension(s), and then customize auto-mode-alist based on 
that. But that's not specific to tree-sitter modes, and not a 
replacement for the current setup.

> And I
> thought this discussion at some point mentioned that Emacs should
> suggest a mode for the file being visited? in which case specifying
> the file is trivial.

Philip K. has proposed a package package-autosuggest - which is 
something that approaches similar needs from an opposite direction 
(providing automatic suggestions when the user visit a file which is 
currently not supported but could be after installing a package or doing 
some extra customization). A totally valid approach - and well-tested by 
the likes of VS Code.

I haven't tested that branch myself yet, and it seems to come with a 
bunch of UI decisions, so it's a bigger endeavor.