From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Minor features and enhancements Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2016 17:22:07 +0300 Message-ID: <83eg7s7xf4.fsf@gnu.org> References: <20160619135637.GB5875@acm.fritz.box> <57672A73.7000109@cs.ucla.edu> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1466435019 23222 80.91.229.3 (20 Jun 2016 15:03:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2016 15:03:39 +0000 (UTC) Cc: acm@muc.de, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jun 20 17:03:34 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1bF0jY-0003ST-PS for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 20 Jun 2016 17:03:28 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:44193 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bF0jY-0003oR-0Q for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 20 Jun 2016 11:03:28 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:52640) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bF06b-0001my-AY for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Jun 2016 10:23:15 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bF06U-00022S-PL for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Jun 2016 10:23:12 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:47336) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bF06U-00021k-Ls; Mon, 20 Jun 2016 10:23:06 -0400 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.246.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.246]:3415 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:128) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1bF06O-0007rD-Ep; Mon, 20 Jun 2016 10:23:00 -0400 In-reply-to: <57672A73.7000109@cs.ucla.edu> (message from Paul Eggert on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 01:27:47 +0200) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e 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:204592 Archived-At: > From: Paul Eggert > Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2016 01:27:47 +0200 > > The need to improve Emacs in minor ways can help us discover and fix problems in basic functionality. Whether a basic function should change is obviously a more important issue than a minor fix elsewhere, and so needs more discussion and review. When evaluating proposed improvements to basic functions, stability is an important merit but it's not the only one. These are general principles with which I fully agree. > Any general policy of avoiding changes to basic functions that only fix annoyances would be hard to distinguish from a policy that simply avoids changes to basic functions I didn't declare any policy -- I'm not authorized for that in the first place, and based on past experience won't expect the crowd to accept even if I was. It was just a heads-up -- that's my conclusion from the past few years of watching Emacs development and participating in it. When reviewing proposed changes of this nature, my tendency will be to object to changes in core that aim at minor improvements. IMO, the rule should be: minor improvements should be accomplished by minor changes outside of the core, or not at all. > after all, what one person considers important another can easily say is only an annoyance. Assuming we all are reasonable people, the above is indeed a judgment call, but only up to a point. E.g., I wouldn't expect anyone here to claim in good faith that non-support for bidirectional scripts was merely an "annoyance".