Re: Question: what is Emacs mode?

[Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>]

* Qiantan Hong <qhong@mit.edu> [2021-04-24 01:05]:
> 1. Do we want node-local modes? 
>     That looks very natural to have. We may edit our code using sexp-mode,
>     but inside docstring, we could use doc-mode locally.
>     This also covers lots of thing in Emacs that were done using text-properties.
>     E.g. bold-mode and background-color-mode (not sure if they’re
>     good idea though).

TECHNOLOGY TEMPLATE PROJECT OHS Framework 
https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/110/460/

I suggest that you also look at Doug Engelbart's work.

Your plan seem that text will become s-exp, chunked, and this may
allow very fine elementary objects to be incorporated, further you can
read in that reference what else could be done. That type of s-exp
text could become so much more than Hyperlinked text.

> 3. Suppose we now have node-local variables and node-local modes, what’s the relation
>     between those of parent nodes and child nodes?
>     It seems natural to let child node inherit modes and variables from parent nodes.
>     E.g., I might just turn on outline-mode on the ‘((Section title-A …)) node in
>     (defun very-complex-function-that-require-a-paper ()
>       ‘((Section title-A
>          (Paragraph lorem ipsum)
>           (Section subtitle-B
>             (Paragraph lorem ipsum))))
>         *code*)
>     And it affects the whole sub-tree.
>     However, are there cases that one don’t want a whole subtree to inherit a mode/variable?
>     Can we safely assume they all get inherited?

I will say something what may not look possible, I rather think it is
possible. It would be good if each of those nodes would have its
unique ID, as then it becomes possible to have someting similar as
OPML able to reference those parts of text even if the node change its
position. Maybe is not feasible.

When thinking about modes, they are turned on automatically in Emacs
based on some factors of recognition like extension or magic headers
or else. Your each different node could have a different mode, why
not, that is liberty then.

Question is the speed.

Will that system have extension language and which one? Will it be
Emacs Lisp or different?

-- 
Jean

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