Re: file-name-shadow-mode

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Miles Bader <snogglethorpe@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:30:57 -0600 (CST), Luc Teirlinck
> <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu> wrote:
>> In other words, rfn-eshadow.el assumes that the value of _every_
>> environment variable is an absolute file name and it yields very
>> confusing results when other environment variables are used in file
>> names, say "/home/$USER".
>
> Well I'm obviously biased, but:
>
> I doubt 99% of the people out there use environment variables while
> typing filenames _at all_.  However I'm probably one of the few that
> does -- in fact I use them heavily -- and I've _never_ wanted to use a
> relative filename from one.
>
> The functionality of rfn-eshadow is quite useful to the vast majority
> of users, and indeed is much-requested, and you want to not enable it
> because you found a minor flaw?  A flaw whose only effect is to make
> the prompt slightly less clear that it could be?  I expect that the
> traditional "double slash" behavior of Emacs filename input -- which
> is what rfn-eshadow fixes -- confuses far, _far_, more people.
>
> [I think it's probably possible to fix this -- e.g., by generating a
> regexp of all non-absolute environment variables and glomming it onto
> the rexexp used for filenames.  But my basic point is that it scarcely
> matters.]

If anyone should by chance encounter it, I'd almost be willing to bet
he'll shrug it off as "peculiarity, to be expected with that kind of
abuse".  I doubt we would get a bug report for it from anyone...

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum