From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: font-lock-maximum-decoration should be 2 by default? Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2012 20:10:21 +0900 Message-ID: <874nnzrvc2.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <87wr0x8zxj.fsf@gmail.com> <831uj5bnid.fsf@gnu.org> <87obm98trc.fsf@gmail.com> <95FA6116C6194DAAA658F916B48C5E23@us.oracle.com> <874no12tan.fsf_-_@gmail.com> <87a9xsokd9.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87a9xs1pqu.fsf@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1345374644 21335 80.91.229.3 (19 Aug 2012 11:10:44 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2012 11:10:44 +0000 (UTC) Cc: 'Eli Zaretskii' , Drew Adams , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Vitalie Spinu Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Aug 19 13:10:44 2012 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 1T33P0-000850-GG for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 19 Aug 2012 13:10:42 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35421 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T33Oz-0008QA-6K for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 19 Aug 2012 07:10:41 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:52143) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T33Ov-0008Pt-J6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 19 Aug 2012 07:10:38 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T33Ou-0000fV-6c for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 19 Aug 2012 07:10:37 -0400 Original-Received: from mgmt2.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.224]:46091) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T33Ot-0000FR-MB for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 19 Aug 2012 07:10:36 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mgmt2.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 53516970250; Sun, 19 Aug 2012 20:10:22 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 17C7C1A30AE; Sun, 19 Aug 2012 20:10:22 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <87a9xs1pqu.fsf@gmail.com> X-Mailer: VM 8.0.12-devo-585 under 21.5 (beta31) "ginger" b4715fcbe001 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 130.158.97.224 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:152668 Archived-At: Vitalie Spinu writes: > It's easy to get sick of too much customization. It's another well know > paradox of human pshychology -- we want more choose but too much choice > is bad for you And the experiments you cite were conducted on a sample of Emacs users? Surely not! The point is that Emacs users *are* different (this is nearly a tautology), and those in the best position to judge *how* different are the maintainers. > There are so many small inconveniences/bugs which I know I can solve > probably in 15-30 minutes by studding the code/docs/customization, but I > continue to leave with those in emacs, sometimes for months and > years. Familiar? Yes, with any program by Microsoft and most of the software on my iPhone. Not in the context of Emacs. It took about two hours to establish the habit of dealing with minor customizations immediately and quite a bit longer (a couple of months) to establish the habit of recording long activities I might want to repeat verbatim and writing quick scripts for those that are basically repetitive but need variation on repetition. These small investments in Emacs have been repaid many times.[1] But they are impossible with most programs. I know I'm at one extreme of the spectrum; at least some Emacs users use it because it was the only decent editor available on their host, or because the best editor for their application was an Emacs mode, and everything else they just don't want to deal with but use Emacs "as is" just because it's there. Nevertheless, that extreme *is* achieved (I'm one example, and I'm not the only one), and I suspect a large share of Emacs users tend to this end of the spectrum. > >> 3) Developers which would like to capture 30% of salad lovers will try > >> to find workarounds. That is, add redundant, mode-specific > >> font-lock customization, or mess with > >> font-lock-maximum-decoration. > > > This is true, but I'm not sure if it's a problem. > > It's a problem in light of yours (2). Everyone wants a consistent > interface. But who decides what "consistent" means? The highlighting appropriate for C is surely different from that for Lisp or Perl or Haskell. Some will be common, I suppose, such as for literal strings. But what about Perl "barewords"? What does consistency mean for something that doesn't exist in most languages? Should shell commands be highlighted differently depending on whether they're builtins, system commands, or shell functions and aliases? That kind of thing has to be decided by the mode developers, although the Emacs maintainers often will offer suggestions, and for modes in core Emacs will add/adjust to their own taste. And in the end the dirge "Why do the defaults always suck?" applies anyway. Footnotes: [1] And then I needed to break them when I started reviewing others' requirement suggestions and code contributions -- reviewers need to make some decisions about defaults, and adjusting to personal taste because your initial reaction is "this SUCKS!!" is inappropriate -- but that's a different story.