something like linum.el ought to be added

[Joe Wells <jbw@macs.hw.ac.uk>]

The approach to line numbering in linum.el seems to work well and
seems to be fast and robust.  I suggest it would be a good idea to
officially add it, or something like it, to Emacs.

This would allow line numbering like many other programs do, with a
line number prefixed to each line on the left.  The current
line-number-mode is not what many users want.

The linum.el file can be found at:

  http://stud4.tuwien.ac.at/~e0225855/linum/linum.html

I suggest the following improvement to linum.el be considered:

• The line number should be put in its own face; linum.el puts it in
  the face default.

• The line number should be put in the display margins.  This would
  allow better display of long lines that wrap around.  The code in
  linum.el appears to be making some attempt to do this, but doesn't
  seem to actually use the margins.

I hope this suggestion is useful.

-- 
Joe