From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Suvayu Ali Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 09:33:34 +0200 Message-ID: <20111003093334.0bf5d988@kuru.homelinux.net> References: <87litcvtu2.fsf@stupidchicken.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1317627235 25554 80.91.229.12 (3 Oct 2011 07:33:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 07:33:55 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org, rms@gnu.org To: emacs-delete-poll@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Oct 03 09:33:51 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RAd27-00008p-77 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:33:51 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:36662 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RAd24-0004to-BH for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 03:33:48 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:50889) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RAd20-0004tj-DX for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 03:33:45 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RAd1z-00023T-Aj for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 03:33:44 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-ey0-f169.google.com ([209.85.215.169]:63946) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RAd1v-00022b-ME; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 03:33:39 -0400 Original-Received: by eye13 with SMTP id 13so2798633eye.0 for ; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:33:38 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=sender:date:from:to:cc:subject:message-id:in-reply-to:references :x-mailer:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=EpDRtXXzn2y6l0HhHTba8xOzRM7BAx+6ExM8DYZYn/w=; b=xMXAAtj6ZxYyvp14N4HO5Kl8eTFPEwA3rBrVFpLFA7r5VPU6hMAczREVgcjm4P0qV5 jJBQwNskk8zzP0GtNUyRHNHSxE8AVg4RTjgOisQWT5TgyNBTOyd9iFP8Q6xolobqVn3A MdXk958BebjRSgcLLbI4VG9Vsbl3xlu/RqBuE= Original-Received: by 10.14.35.98 with SMTP id t74mr2979886eea.183.1317627218016; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:33:38 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from kuru.homelinux.net (ip82-139-118-43.lijbrandt.net. [82.139.118.43]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id q50sm28813069eef.9.2011.10.03.00.33.37 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:33:37 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.9 (GTK+ 2.22.0; x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 209.85.215.169 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:82406 Archived-At: On Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:42:50 -0400 Richard Stallman wrote: > * Are you in favor of this change? > Yes. > * Are you opposed to this change? > No. > * How strongly do you feel about the matter? > Strongly. So much so, that I had advised delete to behave like this when I was using Emacs 23. I am not an expert lisp programmer, so it was a bit buggy. When I discovered this feature in Emacs 24 I was happy to let go of my customisation. FWIW, if this is customisable by a variable expert users opposing this change can easily revert back to the old behaviour but new users find this very confusing (at least in my experience from ~3 yrs back when I adopted Emacs). > We don't want to just "count votes" -- we want to understand > how this affects users. So if you care about the issue, > please tell us how the change affects your editing. > > * What are the cases where you find it helps? > Often I want to delete large chunks of text and don't want it to "pollute" my kill ring. This option lets me do that very easily. In my experience I find I use this more often when I am writing plain text rather than programming. IMO, with the advent of more such modes in Emacs where you edit large amounts of plain text (and not source code) makes this a very useful feature for me (e.g. message-mode, org-mode, ..). I found default behaviour (like the old behaviour) can be a hurdle when introducing other friends to Emacs (I was trying to introduce my non techie friends to org-mode and LaTeX). > * What are the cases where you find it hurts? > As I mentioned above, I find it less useful while programming but I wouldn't say that it hurts. > * What is your level of Emacs experience? > I have been using Emacs for over 3 yrs now. I am a PhD student and my Emacs use involves a lot of programming (C/C++, python, shell scripts for my studies and lisp as hobby), writing notes, draft articles for publications (with org-mode and LaTeX). I am a relatively experienced user of Emacs (of course not compared to the list members, but in comparison to my colleagues at the University). On a more fun note, I am aware of rectangle commands. ;) > A further change in the same area has been suggested: when there is an > active region, a self-inserting character would delete the region > before the character is inserted by default. > > * What would you think of this further change? > I am not sure about this, but this brings default Emacs behaviour close to other modern text editors. If this is a configurable option, I don't see any harm. > Please send your responses to emacs-delete-poll@gnu.org. > > Thank you for asking the user's opinion! -- Suvayu Open source is the future. It sets us free.