Re: PHP mode in Emacs?

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> I do not know whether it has been discussed, but it seems to me there are
> currently unfortunately problems with this approach.  I believe a number
> of things have to be addressed in Emacs before something like mmm-mode can
> work for all modes.  But I am not sure, it is quite complex.  Below are
> however my thoughts about it.

Making it work for all modes in not even a goal for me.  I know there are
some undesired interactions between mmm-mode and various major modes.
We can fix them one by one.  The problem of mmm-mode as it currently stands
is that it tries to solve the problem only on its side, whereas in several
cases it would be better to say "it's a bug in the major mode".  But that's
exactly what we could do if it were integrated in Emacs.

> I can really see no way to stop different modes from stomping at each other
> with mmm-mode.

That's a failure of imagination; you seem to assume major modes are free to
do whatever they want, but that's not the case: they can technically do what
they want, but it can lead to various problems which are then considered
as bugs in the major mode.

So all we need to do is to come up with a kind of convention for how the
major modes should be written such that they cooperate well with mmm-mode.


        Stefan