RE: delete-selection-mode as default

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

> > > And, btw, I find nothing wring with this habit of mine, the only
> > > problem here is that someone decided that "C-x C-x" should activate
> > > the region.
> >
> > Yes. `transient-mark-mode' does it.
> >
> > Consider a replacement for `C-x C-x' that does not activate
> > the region.
> 
> If you mean for everybody (i.e. by default), then I'd welcome patches
> to that effect, and maybe that would be a first step towards making
> delete-selection-mode on by default without annoying veteran Emacs
> users who are fast typist.

I meant that it might help for Emacs to provide such things.

I think that we should have decoupled point-mark swapping
from region activation from the beginning, but we should
also have provided a command that combines them (instead
of only the latter, as `C-x C-x').

Personally, I'd like to see both d-s-m turned on by default
and `C-x C-x' bound to a command that does what it does
now (activates and swaps).

But users should be able to choose: (1) not to use d-s-m,
(2) to swap point and mark without activating the region.

If d-s-m is not on by default, then the question is whether
to change the default behavior of `C-x C-x'.

I don't have an opinion about that, but maybe we shouldn't
change it at this point. If we don't turn on d-s-m then it
should be enough to provide the decoupling. But if long-time
users who dislike d-s-m don't actually take advantage of the
decoupling then that might not really ease the way toward a
possible future enabling of d-s-m by  default.

> If you mean for my own use, then it should be clear to you that my own
> problems with this were solved long ago by my customizations.  All
> this thread is not about my usability problem, it's about everyone
> else.

Right; this discussion not particularly about your use or my use.