From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: RE: M-= in Dired Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 08:19:09 -0700 Message-ID: <9DB30378A3D0455C9B0204CF38470D6B@us.oracle.com> References: <877gs52845.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1347031178 25415 80.91.229.3 (7 Sep 2012 15:19:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 15:19:38 +0000 (UTC) To: "'Chong Yidong'" , Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Sep 07 17:19:40 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 1TA0LE-0001YM-Gs for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 07 Sep 2012 17:19:32 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:39211 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TA0LB-0002CM-C8 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:19:29 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:35212) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TA0L3-0002AP-Kv for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:19:27 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TA0L2-0005r8-Hi for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:19:21 -0400 Original-Received: from acsinet15.oracle.com ([141.146.126.227]:28221) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TA0L2-0005qx-Bo; Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:19:20 -0400 Original-Received: from ucsinet22.oracle.com (ucsinet22.oracle.com [156.151.31.94]) by acsinet15.oracle.com (Sentrion-MTA-4.2.2/Sentrion-MTA-4.2.2) with ESMTP id q87FJFZL008994 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Fri, 7 Sep 2012 15:19:17 GMT Original-Received: from acsmt358.oracle.com (acsmt358.oracle.com [141.146.40.158]) by ucsinet22.oracle.com (8.14.4+Sun/8.14.4) with ESMTP id q87FJFge016088 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Fri, 7 Sep 2012 15:19:15 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt101.oracle.com (abhmt101.oracle.com [141.146.116.53]) by acsmt358.oracle.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id q87FJEPK009931; Fri, 7 Sep 2012 10:19:14 -0500 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/10.159.216.219) by default (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:19:14 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 In-Reply-To: <877gs52845.fsf@gnu.org> Thread-Index: Ac2NCTLLEp4HjfuzRhS3LKyYJC/OxQAAHHGQ X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 X-Source-IP: ucsinet22.oracle.com [156.151.31.94] X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 1) X-Received-From: 141.146.126.227 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:153154 Archived-At: > In Dired, M-= is bound to dired-backup-diff. This is no good; there's > no good reason for Dired to override the global binding for M-=, which > is count-words-region. Actually, there is no good reason for the global binding of `M-=' to `count-words-region' either. It is wasteful of a perfectly good repeatable key for `M-=' to be bound to `count-words-region', which is not a usefully repeatable command. You won't be holding down `M-=' to repeat `count-words-region' multiple times. It would be far better to bind `count-words-region' to something like `C-x M-=', and thus keep `M-=' free. It makes sense to use `M-=' for a repeatable action or perhaps as a prefix key for grouping things that are mnemonic with an equals sign. I use `C-=', for example, as a prefix key for various comparisons: C-= b ediff-buffers C-= d diff C-= e, C-= f ediff-files An equals sign can be suggestive of comparing things or of calculating/printing a result, and no doubt of other things as well. (Emacs sometimes uses `:' for the showing a result, as in `M-:'.) The point is that we do not have a very good reason for sacrificing `M-=' to a one-off command like `count-words-region'. Sure, that's a good command to bind to some key, but let's bind it to `C-x M-=' or another key that is not so useful as either a repeatable key or a prefix key. > If there are no objections, I will simply unbind dired-backup-diff, > and improve the behavior of = (dired-diff) so that it uses any existing > backup file as the minibuffer input default, like M-x diff does. No objection about that from me. But I would prefer that we find a different binding for `count-words-region', for the reasons given above.