Compatibility

Compatibility

[xenodasein--- via Emacs development discussions.]

Was: Re: recent change to yanking behavior of the clipboard
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2022-02/msg00302.html
From: tomas
> ...
> Psychologically it is extremely... challenging that something "stops
> working" under you, and you don't even know how that something is
> called. Perhaps that's part of the reason for the sometimes strong
> reactions elicited by some changes.
> ...

But, why?  Things don't stop working just because, you/an admin makes
the choice of replacing the current software with a different, newer
one.  What am I missing?  This is an oft repeated experience and I feel
unable to understand gist of this matter.

Re: Compatibility

[tomas]

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On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 11:27:49AM +0100, xenodasein@tutanota.de wrote:
> Was: Re: recent change to yanking behavior of the clipboard
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2022-02/msg00302.html
> From: tomas
> > ...
> > Psychologically it is extremely... challenging that something "stops
> > working" under you, and you don't even know how that something is
> > called. Perhaps that's part of the reason for the sometimes strong
> > reactions elicited by some changes.
> > ...
> 
> But, why?  Things don't stop working just because, you/an admin makes
> the choice of replacing the current software with a different, newer
> one.

Bu they do. Hardware change. User expectations change, because new users
enter the scene. Environments change. Not long ago (in geological terms)
people in my bubble were cutting and pasting with selection/middle mouse
button, nowadays, with CTRL-C/CTRL_V. "My" bubble has been "invaded" by
Windows users, so to speak. OTOH, that is a Good Thing, because more
people get exposed to the idea of free software, ain't it?

I try as hard as I can to not react to this with resentment. Change is a
fact of life. OTOH, I like to choose what changes I follow along with and
which ones I try to avoid. If sofware supports me with that, I am thankful.

>      What am I missing?  This is an oft repeated experience and I feel
> unable to understand gist of this matter.

Change. It's a fact of life. That doesn't mean you or me have to like every
change whic comes along :)

(if I have understood you correctly, that is)

Cheers
-- 
t

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Re: Compatibility

[Po Lu]

>> But, why?  Things don't stop working just because, you/an admin makes
>> the choice of replacing the current software with a different, newer
>> one.

Sorry, but that choice was made over two decades ago, so you have to
adapt.  Unless, of course, you stay with Emacs 23 and Qt 2, and not run
any X client written in the past two decades.

> Bu they do. Hardware change. User expectations change, because new users
> enter the scene. Environments change. Not long ago (in geological terms)
> people in my bubble were cutting and pasting with selection/middle mouse
> button, nowadays, with CTRL-C/CTRL_V. "My" bubble has been "invaded" by
> Windows users, so to speak. OTOH, that is a Good Thing, because more
> people get exposed to the idea of free software, ain't it?

Potential tangent, but I really don't believe that this consensus was
influenced by MS-Windows users.  Rather, it was formed by people
generally agreeing that using the primary selection to hold cut text
made little to no sense.  For instance, the "Cut" menu item in most
applications would do nothing at all, if it only stored cut text in the
primary selection.

On systems with no primary selection (which Emacs supports), it's even
more meaningless.

Re: Compatibility

[tomas]

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On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 07:57:02PM +0800, Po Lu wrote:
> 
> >> But, why?  Things don't stop working just because, you/an admin makes
> >> the choice of replacing the current software with a different, newer
> >> one.
> 
> Sorry, but that choice was made over two decades ago, so you have to
> adapt.  Unless, of course, you stay with Emacs 23 and Qt 2, and not run
> any X client written in the past two decades.

Po Lu, you are often so absolute :-)

As I said, there's a use case for some of us old... whatevers. I set
`select-enable-primary' to t and am pretty happy with it. I see and
understand the issues you raise, and wouldn't recommend that setting
to many. But I'm with Emacs 25-something, have no Qt to speak of and
am /still/ happy. And glad to have the option.

Cheers & thanks for all your hard work, BTW.
-- 
t

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Re: Compatibility

[Po Lu]

tomas@tuxteam.de writes:

> I set `select-enable-primary' to t and am pretty happy with it. I see
> and understand the issues you raise, and wouldn't recommend that
> setting to many.

Thanks.

> Cheers & thanks for all your hard work, BTW.

Cheers to you as well, thanks.

Re: Compatibility

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com>
> Cc: xenodasein@tutanota.de,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2022 19:57:02 +0800
> 
> > Bu they do. Hardware change. User expectations change, because new users
> > enter the scene. Environments change. Not long ago (in geological terms)
> > people in my bubble were cutting and pasting with selection/middle mouse
> > button, nowadays, with CTRL-C/CTRL_V. "My" bubble has been "invaded" by
> > Windows users, so to speak. OTOH, that is a Good Thing, because more
> > people get exposed to the idea of free software, ain't it?
> 
> Potential tangent, but I really don't believe that this consensus was
> influenced by MS-Windows users.  Rather, it was formed by people
> generally agreeing that using the primary selection to hold cut text
> made little to no sense.

And where did those people come from, you think?

I agree with Thomas: almost everything in the "modern" desktop
environments were copy-cat'ed from Windows.  There are days when I
wonder whether those desktop guys have no creativity and no
imagination.

> For instance, the "Cut" menu item in most applications would do
> nothing at all, if it only stored cut text in the primary selection.

Because there was no "Cut" back there, AFAIR, there were only
selections.  Windows didn't have selections (still doesn't), so they
impregnated us with the clipboard.

(Full disclosure: I do NOT customize select-enable-primary to
non-default values.)

Re: Compatibility

[Po Lu]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> Potential tangent, but I really don't believe that this consensus was
>> influenced by MS-Windows users.  Rather, it was formed by people
>> generally agreeing that using the primary selection to hold cut text
>> made little to no sense.

> Because there was no "Cut" back there, AFAIR, there were only
> selections.  Windows didn't have selections (still doesn't), so they
> impregnated us with the clipboard.

IIRC we had such a cut menu item in Emacs since some time in the early
Emacs 19 release cycle.

CLIPBOARD was also with us since the beginning of selections, and before
that, there were cut buffers (which xterm still uses to this day, and
existed since the early days of X.)

Thanks.

Re: Compatibility

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com>
> Cc: tomas@tuxteam.de,  xenodasein@tutanota.de,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2022 21:49:21 +0800
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> >> Potential tangent, but I really don't believe that this consensus was
> >> influenced by MS-Windows users.  Rather, it was formed by people
> >> generally agreeing that using the primary selection to hold cut text
> >> made little to no sense.
> 
> > Because there was no "Cut" back there, AFAIR, there were only
> > selections.  Windows didn't have selections (still doesn't), so they
> > impregnated us with the clipboard.
> 
> IIRC we had such a cut menu item in Emacs since some time in the early
> Emacs 19 release cycle.

The Emacs parlance for "cut" was "kill"; the "Cut" menu item called
kill-region, which on X would also set the PRIMARY selection.

> CLIPBOARD was also with us since the beginning of selections

Yes, but it was largely unused (except in Emacs on Windows, where we
had no alternative).  I'm quite sure that people whose first computer
ran Windows started promoting the clipboard, because they had no idea
what selections were about and how they worked.