RE: [External] : Re: Question about completion behavior

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> Man, please relax...

Oh, I'm relaxed.  Believe me, Man. ;-)

> The user experience is exactly the same than before.  Just that now
> there is an option to change, suppress or/and get a counter with the
> total number of completions

I already welcomed that, in a previous message.
It's helpful to tell users how many completions
there are.

(I suggested that the *Completions* mode-line
might be a better place for it.)

> where there was before just a bit superfluous
> hard-coded message: "Possible completions are:"
> 
> That's it. Everything else is exactly the same.

My message wasn't about your addition of the
number of matches at the top of *Completions*
(when there _are_ matches).

> >> > Why would we ever say "0 possible completions"?
> >> > Why bother with "possible"?  We never show
> >> > IMpossible completions, do we?
> >> >
> >> > When there are no matches we just tell users
> >> > there's no match.  Always have.  Simple.
> >
> >And your answer is?
> 
> Because the original message was: "Possible
> completions are:" and it has been there since
> ever without hearing your complains about that
> the completions are not IMpossible.

I don't see "Possible completions are:" when there
are no completions.  What I see is that window
*Completions* is removed when you try to complete
a pattern that has no matches.

(Granted, I'm looking at the latest release, 27.2,
not any new work-in-progress.  But you say this
thing I don't see has been there forever, so I'm
perplexed.  We must not be smoking the same thing.)

My point was that, compared to the vanilla, age-old
behavior of removing the *Completions* window when
you try to match an unmatchable pattern, a proposed
new behavior of continuing to show *Completions*,
but with a message at the top saying "0 possible
completions" (or any other wording of that), sounds
like a step backward, to me.  That's all.  Just one
opinion.

(And I don't even use the vanilla *Completions*
behavior.  I just happen to care about Emacs beyond
my own use of it.)

> I don't care anything about one word at all and if
> the user doesn't like the word or you want to put
> there "Drews completions are:", at least now
> you have an option to customize it as you prefer...

I don't want to put anything there.  I'm asking why
we'd want to show a buffer that lists no completions,
instead of just removing that window.  I'm asking
why that would be an improvement - or even a good
option to offer.