From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Xah Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: No copy when killing Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:27:52 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <7815d58b-3f37-4320-af94-178611ff3950@z24g2000prf.googlegroups.com> References: <39fbd280-441d-498e-9a53-ce3188f31398@d77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com> <0cd27ea8-87cb-4891-8cce-8887be2aa949@e39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1213530051 6702 80.91.229.12 (15 Jun 2008 11:40:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:40:51 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jun 15 13:41:30 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1K7qby-0001fB-2Z for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:41:30 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:55710 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1K7qbA-0000dC-44 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:40:40 -0400 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!z24g2000prf.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 136 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.6.97.120 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1213529273 26511 127.0.0.1 (15 Jun 2008 11:27:53 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:27:53 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: z24g2000prf.googlegroups.com; posting-host=24.6.97.120; posting-account=bRPKjQoAAACxZsR8_VPXCX27T2YcsyMA User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10_4_11; en) AppleWebKit/525.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Safari/525.18, gzip(gfe), gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:159492 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:54846 Archived-At: i thought about the issue a bit. That is, about whether using kill commands putting erased text into the kill-ring creates more efficient work mode. For this purpose, i wrote the equivalent non-kill versions and gonna use it myself to experiment. Here's the code, a bit more robust than in my previous post. (defun my-delete-word (arg) "Delete characters forward until encountering the end of a word. With argument, do this that many times. This command does not push erased text to kill-ring." (interactive "p") (delete-region (point) (progn (forward-word arg) (point)))) (defun my-backward-delete-word (arg) "Delete characters backward until encountering the beginning of a word. With argument, do this that many times. This command does not push erased text to kill-ring." (interactive "p") (my-delete-word (- arg))) (defun my-delete-line () "Delete text from current position to end of line char." (interactive) (delete-region (point) (save-excursion (move-end-of-line 1) (point))) (delete-char 1) ) (defun my-delete-line-backward () "Delete text between the beginning of the line to the cursor position." (interactive) (let (x1 x2) (setq x1 (point)) (move-beginning-of-line 1) (setq x2 (point)) (delete-region x1 x2))) ; Here's the code to bind them with emacs's default shortcut keys: (global-set-key (kbd "C-S-k") 'my-delete-line-backward) (global-set-key (kbd "C-k") 'my-delete-line) (global-set-key (kbd "M-d") 'my-delete-word) (global-set-key (kbd "") 'my-backward-delete-word) ---------------------------------- Some random comments and thoughts follows. initial first day experience of using the above is that its annoying, of course due to habit of 10 years with emacs ways. Note that emacs commands that contains the word =E2=80=9Ckill=E2=80=9D is me= ant to push text into the kill-ring. So, instead of naming =E2=80=9Cmy-kill-line=E2= =80=9D, more proper naming in the context of emacs is =E2=80=9Cdelete-line=E2=80=9D = or =E2=80=9Cmy- delete-line=E2=80=9D, thus i've named them above. Also included above is a my-delete-line-backward, which is like kill- line but from cursor point to begining of line, as opposed to end of line. I've been using this command together with my ergonomic keyboard shortcut set for over a year now and find it convenient. It seems logical that emacs does not provide a option for the kill commands to not push to the kill-ring. To provide that option would be breaking the original design's consistency, because text-erasing commands with =E2=80=9Ckill=E2=80=9D in their names are supposed to work wit= h the =E2=80=9Ckill-ring=E2=80=9D. But, suppose non-kill is something we absolutely need in emacs, then it can be still done without breaking design, by providing the set of new function without using the word =E2=80=9Ckill=E2=80=9D in them as above.= When user opt to the non-kill version, then the keybinding for these kill commands will switch to the non-kill set of commands that has =E2=80=9Cdelet= e=E2=80=9D in their names. Since about 2005 i thought about many emacs issues of its non-standard or non-conventional user interface. That is why the =E2=80=9Ckill=E2=80=9D i= ssue is interesting to me. For vast majority of professional programers, perhaps 99.99%, the emacs ways of intermingling the kill-ring with modern concept of =E2=80=9Cclipboard=E2=80=9D is unfamilar, thus a setback. I started to use emacs in 1998 and by 1999 i live in emacs daily. I don't remember now, but undoubtly i was also surprised by emacs's mix of =E2=80=9Ckill=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Cclipboard=E2=80=9D in the beginning, = however, i quickly adopted it and don't remember ever thought about it. In the past few years, sometimes i also run into the problem where i don't want killed text to offset whatever i have copied to the =E2=80=9Cclipboard=E2=80=9D. In such a occation, of course, you select the t= ext then hit the delete key, so that the =E2=80=9Cclipboard=E2=80=9D is still intact.= Alternatively, i learned to use the emacs feature of =E2=80=9Cregister=E2=80= =9D (which is another form of =E2=80=9Cclipboard=E2=80=9D). In the end, the interesting question is whether emacs way of pushing into kill-ring on deleting word/line/sentence is more operatively efficient. By =E2=80=9Coperatively efficient=E2=80=9D, i meant of less keys= trokes or more intuitive, for general editing tasks. This can be tested at least theoretically, by imagining 2 groups of emacs users of equal experience, one group having used a emacs version such that kill-line, kill-word, backward-kill-word don't push to the kill-ring. While the other group uses the standard emacs. Then, suppose we record their keystrokes and command calls for a few months, then we can mine or analyse the keystroke log and see whether one way is better. This may sound too complicated to carry out... but actually i think if any long time emacs user actually tried the above for at least 2 months, he can get a sense of which one is more operatively efficient. (this would be like adopting dvorak keyboard, the first week will be extreme pain in the ass. But only after full adoption, one can truly judge) It's my guess that the operative efficiency of the two methods actually doesn't differ that much. That is, one method might be more convenient or save keystrokes sometimes, but not always. If this is so, then emacs would be much better off, if it adopts the more widely familiar interface by not having the delete word/line/sentence shorcuts push into the kill-ring/clipboard. Xah =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/ =E2=98=84