From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Should overlays evaporate by default? Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 12:27:52 -0400 Message-ID: References: <200505101556.j4AFupmb015431@brains.moreideas.ca> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1115828837 25283 80.91.229.2 (11 May 2005 16:27:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 16:27:17 +0000 (UTC) Cc: bob@rattlesnake.com, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed May 11 18:27:15 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DVu1U-00048P-89 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 11 May 2005 18:25:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DVuAF-0007Mx-Tv for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 11 May 2005 12:34:27 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DVu6X-0005dZ-Oq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 11 May 2005 12:30:38 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DVu6T-0005bH-IC for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 11 May 2005 12:30:35 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DVu6R-0005UJ-RN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 11 May 2005 12:30:32 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1DVuBU-00008T-1j for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 11 May 2005 12:35:44 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.34) id 1DVu3s-0003hE-Jq; Wed, 11 May 2005 12:27:52 -0400 Original-To: Peter Whaite In-reply-to: <200505101556.j4AFupmb015431@brains.moreideas.ca> (message from Peter Whaite on Tue, 10 May 2005 11:56:51 -0400) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:36981 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:36981 Perhaps it would be better for overlays to evaporate by default. I tend to agree this would make things better in most cases, and only be wrong in a few. However, it is an incompatible change, and in some places it WILL break code. It occur to me that we could make it easier to find those places. Suppose that by default the `evaporate' property is set to `display-warning'. Suppose that in this case, when the overlay becomes empty, it evaporates and displays a warning using `display-warning'. On seeing the warningm programmers would adapt their programs to set `evaporate' either to t or nil and thus prevent the warning. In Emacs 23, we could change the default to t.