From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Some developement questions Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2018 20:31:32 +0300 Message-ID: <83tvnmb958.fsf@gnu.org> References: <444779489.8504194.1534538988289.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <444779489.8504194.1534538988289@mail.yahoo.com> <83sh3cfb3t.fsf@gnu.org> <87sh36inql.fsf@himinbjorg.adminart.net> <8336v6cvem.fsf@gnu.org> <8736v6icgt.fsf@himinbjorg.adminart.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1534959025 16557 195.159.176.226 (22 Aug 2018 17:30:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2018 17:30:25 +0000 (UTC) Cc: spacibba@aol.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: hw Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Aug 22 19:30:21 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 1fsWxY-0004ED-Tf for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 22 Aug 2018 19:30:21 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60173 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fsWzf-0000Yc-D9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:32:31 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:50308) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fsWyu-0000XW-Sr for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:31:46 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fsWyr-0008Ci-KJ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:31:44 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:37914) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fsWyp-0008Ag-Mx; Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:31:41 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=2646 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1fsWyo-00016n-4u; Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:31:39 -0400 In-reply-to: <8736v6icgt.fsf@himinbjorg.adminart.net> (message from hw on Wed, 22 Aug 2018 18:37:54 +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:228824 Archived-At: > From: hw > Cc: spacibba@aol.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org > Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2018 18:37:54 +0200 > > > IMO, that would be too radical, because in an init file each option > > already has a value. So we will have to decide for the users whether > > or not they want certain options to have certain values. That might > > work for boolean options, but many options in Emacs are non-boolean. > > As just one example, consider display-line-numbers-mode -- it has > > between 3 and 4 different styles, so which one would you put in the > > .emacs? > > Use the values you would you put for the particular use case the file is > designed for. They all are. The selection depends on user preferences and habits. > I didn´t know that there´s a mode displaying line numbers that has > styles; I´ve only used linum-mode so far. It would be interesting to > learn about this from a file. You can learn about it from the Emacs manual, of course. > > By contrast, by creating a group of options, we don't need to decide > > for the users what values of which options they like; we just make the > > options we think are relevant for them more easily discoverable. > > But then, the users can be overwhelmed by a multitude of options and > may have trouble figuring out which ones to change and which values to > set. They don't need to consider all of them. They can take them one at a time. The documentation should tell them enough to make the decision, perhaps after some experimenting. Then they can go to the next option. IOW, the collection is just a device to enhance discoverability, in presenting the options some class of users are likely to benefit from. > When customize was introduced, I tried it out and got totally lost in > it. I got taken from one buffer to another and figured this isn´t > useful at all unless you already exactly know what you´re looking for. > Even then, it´s difficult to find. That's the purpose of presenting a relatively small group of options, out of many hundreds we have. > How do you customize key bindings and add your own elisp? I write Lisp. But I'm not a user of the kind we are talking about, so what I do have little relevance here. > They don´t need to do that. You offer them to use one of the > configurations in the LaTeX group for working with LaTeX and to use one > of the configurations in the C++ group when writing C++ source code, and > so on. We already have that: each mode file includes options for that mode. What will we gain by having another file with those same options?