Re: new text property

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org> writes:
> You can overload font-lock-mode to mean that, but it has traditionally
> not been the case.

From a user's perspective, `most' fontified stuff has traditionally been
handled by font-lock, and so `M-x font-lock-mode' (and
global-font-lock-mode) is the familiar interface to turning on and off
fontification.

So, if you want to have a unified method of doing this, what are your
choices?

I can see:

  (1) Add a new command/mode/whatever that does it, which acts as a
      layer on top of the traditional font-lock code, gnus, comint, etc.
  
  (2) Extend the familiar UI aspect of `M-x font-lock-mode' to work
      generally for modes that don't use the traditional font-lock
      mechanism, and additionally add more separation between the
      font-lock UI and the regexp-scanning etc.  [note that for a user,
      the name `font-lock-mode' makes perfect sense as a way to toggle
      fontification]

Method (1) means that users have to learn a new command to use in many
cases, whereas (2) means that for most cases, the interface remains the
same, and in fact starts to work for other modes -- an extension which
I'd argue is quite natural (unless you're a font-lock hacker, in which
case you're probably grumbling that `none of this makes any sense,
font-lock is font-lock!!').

Don't get hung up on the traditional conflation of the font-lock UI with
the mechanism used to implement it; it's really not necessary.

-Miles

-- 
.Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.