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: facemenu-unlisted-faces Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 02:26:09 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1153031379 22193 80.91.229.2 (16 Jul 2006 06:29:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 06:29:39 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jul 16 08:29:37 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1G208D-0004vW-TT for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 16 Jul 2006 08:29:34 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1G208D-0000iW-AE for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 16 Jul 2006 02:29:33 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1G204x-0006uV-P7 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 16 Jul 2006 02:26:11 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1G204w-0006tU-TU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 16 Jul 2006 02:26:11 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1G204w-0006tE-GM for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 16 Jul 2006 02:26:10 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1G207K-0003K5-6C for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 16 Jul 2006 02:28:38 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.34) id 1G204v-0002CW-Kr; Sun, 16 Jul 2006 02:26:09 -0400 Original-To: "Drew Adams" In-reply-to: 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:57079 Archived-At: Things that it might be argued are missing from the notion of face, to achieve the full flexibility of "semantic" markup, are 1) the ability to map faces in different ways to different appearances (or sounds or whatever) in different media, It would be easy to add such a mapping to ps-print if it doesn't have that feature already. (Does it?) That is the only Emacs feature which can output to "different media". 2) the ability to constrain the context of application of a given face, I see no need for that. and 3) the ability to define and add new face attributes (possibly unrelated to appearance). That seems like creeping featurism, and is not needed for semantic markup. I see no need for "constant" faces. If you don't want to change one, don't. I'm not suggesting we should necessarily have any kind of tight control here; a defconst-like treatment would probably be sufficient. The constantness of `defconst' amounts to little more than a doc admonition not to change the value, and that's probably enough for constant faces too. I would not object to that, if it would solve a real problem. I don't want the complexity if the problem it would solve is purely theoretical. So far no evidence has been presented that it is real.