Re: isearch-yank-char

[Karl Fogel <kfogel@floss.red-bean.com>]

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:
> Yeah .. and it's one of those things about which it's risky to make
> judgements based on personal experience -- people seem to vary a _lot_ in the
> way they use isearch (I'm always a bit surprised when I watch someone else
> using it...).
> 
> It's a shame, because it would be nice to use more "normal" bindings in
> isearch to do "isearchey variants", but it's probably necessary to be pretty
> conservative.

In this case, I wonder if we're not being overly conservative.

If people learn by experience that certain commands no longer exit
isearch as before, and instead cause isearch to behave in new ways,
this might be okay as long as the experiences aren't too painful.  And
I think these wouldn't be terribly painful.  The benefits (very useful
new functionality in isearch) are permanent, the costs are temporary
and probably not large.

I agree with the conservatism argument in general -- it nearly drove
me crazy when C-a's behavior in shell-mode changed -- but conservatism
is less important in situations that are unlikely to be reflexive
editing idioms for users.  While C-f (and C-b) are practically spinal
reflexes when used in a "normal" editing context, they are much less
likely to be reflexive *when used as isearch exiting methods*, because
isearch is much less frequented than regular editing modes, and
because everyone who is in isearch is already conscious that they're
in a "special" editing state.  People's minds are already a bit
prepared for something unusual to happen in isearch, so it's not as
bad when it does.

-Karl