Re: delete-selection-mode as default (WAS: Some developement questions)

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Noam Postavsky <npostavs@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2018 20:32:54 -0400
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, hw <hw@adminart.net>, spacibba@aol.com, 
> 	Emacs developers <emacs-devel@gnu.org>, Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@russet.org.uk>
> 
> >> Type "C-x C-x", then some letter: puff! the whole region is gone.
> >> This could be okay in text modes, but in code buffers users generally
> >> don't replace regions with single letters.
> 
> I don't understand why a user who is okay with replacing the region
> with a single letter in text mode, would all of sudden dislike the
> idea in a code buffer.

Because in text editing, it is a frequent use case that you want to
replace a region of text with some other long text; and also I find
myself in the need of doing "C-x C-x" much less frequently when I'm
editing text.  By contrast, in coding, most changes are of a much
smaller size, and "C-x C-x" is a very frequent command, due to the
need to look at other portions of the code.

> Maybe. My feeling from using non-Emacs editors (gasp!), is that the
> main use of this sort of thing is rather for replacing the selection
> by pasting, not so about much typing. Or, for when some feature
> inserts some default text, it highlights that text, indicating to the
> user that they may replace it by typing (i.e., it's rare that a
> user-created selection is deleted by typing).

It is exactly these features that get in the way when I write code.
It means I must click the mouse or do some cursor motion or C-g after
yanking, otherwise typing something will nuke the text just yanked.

Feel free to start a user poll, though: if it turns out I'm the only
one who thinks delete-selection-mode is inappropriate in programming
modes, we can make it the default; I can easily turn it off in my
configuration.  Though I would urge people to actually try this in
programming modes before responding, and in any case the poll should
request to provide the major modes used with the responses.