From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jean Louis Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Suggested experimental test Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2021 13:49:35 +0300 Message-ID: References: <831ba60af0cbfdd95686@heytings.org> <87mtuxj8ue.fsf@gnus.org> <9088e12cb3169cdcdbc4@heytings.org> <9088e12cb3a70cbf66aa@heytings.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="25189"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Mutt/2.0.6 (2021-03-06) Cc: "Alfred M. Szmidt" , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Gregory Heytings Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Mon Mar 22 11:54:55 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1lOID1-0006SK-9c for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 22 Mar 2021 11:54:55 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57042 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lOID0-0004wf-Bs for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 22 Mar 2021 06:54:54 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:40534) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lOIBa-0003wU-Jy for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 22 Mar 2021 06:53:26 -0400 Original-Received: from stw1.rcdrun.com ([217.170.207.13]:58663) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lOIBW-0003pn-TZ; Mon, 22 Mar 2021 06:53:26 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost ([::ffff:41.202.241.53]) (AUTH: PLAIN securesender, TLS: TLS1.3,256bits,ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384) by stw1.rcdrun.com with ESMTPSA id 000000000001E1B8.000000006058771F.00004C71; Mon, 22 Mar 2021 03:53:18 -0700 Mail-Followup-To: Gregory Heytings , "Alfred M. Szmidt" , emacs-devel@gnu.org Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <9088e12cb3a70cbf66aa@heytings.org> Received-SPF: pass client-ip=217.170.207.13; envelope-from=bugs@gnu.support; helo=stw1.rcdrun.com X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:266744 Archived-At: * Gregory Heytings [2021-03-22 01:18]: > C-o is not at all "hitting the trash can", at the moment there is nothing > more than a proposal to conduct an experiment to make a (small?) change to > its meaning. I hope you started keeping notes of number of those who agree and those who disagree, did you? In my opinion the experiment started by introducing it. Some disagreer could read in the patch what is going on, and there is no need for it to be experimented, as the disagreement is already there due to high usage of C-o personally. But I can understand that your experiment comes from a different view point, I can bet you do not use C-o as much as I do, you probably never use it, am I right? Me I learned about it long time ago, and I use it in every Emacs-like editor. Did you hear of zile-on-guile editor? There is also Emacs that runs on Guile, there is mg, e3em, zile, those are most common that I use, but I may sometimes use > C-o was described as follows in the 1985 Emacs manual: "When you want to > insert a new line of text before an existing line, you can do it by typing > the new line of text, followed by RET. However, it may be easier to see > what you are doing if you first make a blank line and then insert the > desired text into it. This is easy to do using the key C-o, which inserts a > newline after point but leaves point in front of the newline. After C-o, > type the text for the new line. C-o F O O has the same effect as F O O RET, > except for the final location of point." It seems clear that C-o was > thought as a convenience command, not as an essential editing > command. I do understand the above. Because cursor is often located at the beginning of the line, C-o opens up new line and allows me to basically insert new line of text. The behavior described in this paragraph is somewhat different than the behavior described in the above paragraph from 1985. It is inserting a new line in this specific example, do you see? Another personal usage of C-o is whe cursor is located somewhere on the line, but not at beginning of the line, then C-a C-o is what I mostly use. That is how I insert new line above the current one with cursor in such position. You can see that this behavior in this paragraph is definitely not the same as the behavior described in 1985 manual, but also not same as behavior in the previous paragraph. I could be doing instead C-a RET C-p or C-a RET ARROW-UP -- and I am kind of thankful for C-a C-o sequence as that is what I use so often. At this point I would like to know, how do you insert new line? Do you insert them at all? 124 -- ONE LINE -- 345 -- LAST LINE -- ^ When your cursor is on the letter L in the second line above, what do you do to insert one line there? When your cursor is on the number 3 on last line, what do you do to insert new line? Both questions are beyond the behavior as described in the 1985 manual that you assume to be the default and not usable behavior today. This analysis is also part of your experiment, and I am genuinely interested how people insert new line above the current line. I use C-o or C-a C-o combination when cursor is not at beginning of the line. > Emacs evolves very conservatively, and if at some point it becomes clear > that some key binding is not useful for 99.9% of its users, there is no > reason to keep it as is just because 40 years ago, under very different > circumstances, it was considered convenient or useful. If you have a list of number of people agreeing and disagreeing, then you can make one true mathematical percentage as result. As now you presented some information and then also your opinion that somehow relates 99.9% to C-o not being useful, but opinions should not be biased, as if you do the experiment, count the number of people agreeing or disagreeing. Also explain how you insert new lines, and if you insert them at all. Give some reasoning. In vi and vim editors I use often O to insert new line, it is little easier than C-o as it works with cursor being anywhere on the line. The point is, I do insert empty lines all the time, every single day, every hour. > I'd say that Emacs is a bit like the C programming language, which > evolves as conservatively as (or perhaps even more conservatively > than) Emacs. Just because a function was considered useful and was > included in the standard library 30 years ago does not mean that it > should forever remain in the standard library. Yes, I do agree on that, but you are relating that statement which is opinion to experiment, which was supposed to be some observable countable fact, and experiment would not even involve casual Emacs users, only those people reading this mailing list. It could not be really complete without getting feedback from many other users. How do you insert new lines? Jean