Re: My resignation from Emacs development

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2024 23:22:01 -0500
> 
>   > What has been implemented, "remapping", is a sort of extreme version of
>   > advice: it supersedes a symbol's function by some other function.
> 
> I agree.

I don't agree.  This is not the first (nor the last) time we have
similar "remapping" in Emacs.  We have "<remap> <SOMETHING>" in
keymaps (see "Remapping Commands" in the ELisp manual).  We have
face-remapping-alist, which remaps a named face into some different
face.  We have shortcuts, which "remap" symbols.  And I'm sure I can
find more examples of similar "remappings".

>   > What's more, it is the core Emacs functions which do this, not some
>   > wierd user setting.  CC Mode's symbol `c-mode' now sometimes means C
>   > Mode, sometimes c-ts-mode.
> 
> This situation is complex because what was previously a single
> operation has to be replaced by a choice of two partly similar
> operations.  That is always somewhat messy, but we can make it less
> messy than this.
> 
> One of the two new operations is, "Select C mode, no TS."
> the other new operation is, "Select my usual mode for C."
> They used to be entirely equiva;ent, but now they are not.
> 
> We could define a name for each of those operations.
> 
> Maybe there could be `c-no-ts-mode' and `c-ts-mode', as well as
> `c-mode' which would follow the user's previously stated choice
> between the other two.
> 
>   > The lack of available compromise is largely due to needing/wanting to
>   > get the upcoming release released on time, without making any
>   > significant changes to the code which might make an extra pretest
>   > necessary.
> 
> That is not necessarily a horrible error if it is _temporary_.
> What would be horrible is to let this hurried expedient decide
> the commands of Emacs forever.

We are discussing the various ways of having a cleaner set of commands
and features in future Emacs releases.  But none of them will remove
major-mode-remap-alist from Emacs, though we might decide not to use
it for some of these features.