From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Joe Corneli Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Is Emacs becoming Word? Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 11:11:40 -0600 Message-ID: References: <20050325180531.GB16586@dionysus.ucolick.org> <01c53202$Blat.v2.4$fc3ff320@zahav.net.il> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1111857201 23029 80.91.229.2 (26 Mar 2005 17:13:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 17:13:21 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Mar 26 18:13:20 2005 Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DFEqb-0006pQ-SI for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 18:13:18 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DFF6K-0004Ix-Oe for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:29:32 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DFF4V-0003Vd-PO for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:27:41 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DFF4R-0003UE-NX for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:27:37 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DFF4R-0003Tv-CD for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:27:35 -0500 Original-Received: from [146.6.139.124] (helo=dell3.ma.utexas.edu) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1DFEp3-00022Z-BO for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:11:41 -0500 Original-Received: from lab45.ma.utexas.edu (mail@lab45.ma.utexas.edu [128.83.133.159]) by dell3.ma.utexas.edu (8.11.0.Beta3/8.10.2) with ESMTP id j2QHBeC24186; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 11:11:40 -0600 Original-Received: from jcorneli by lab45.ma.utexas.edu with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 1DFEp2-0003Jx-00; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 11:11:40 -0600 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org In-reply-to: <01c53202$Blat.v2.4$fc3ff320@zahav.net.il> (eliz@gnu.org) 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 X-MailScanner-To: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:25194 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:25194 > While I'm not against implementing these wacky new feature, I request > that they remain _off by default_. Since you do like some of the ``wacky'' new features, please give a list of those which you request to be left off by default. We cannot possibly guess them, and the two problems you mentioned _are_ already off by default, see below. [...] > The other day I was editing Lisp code and found that instead of the > usual paren highlighting, Emacs was highlighting the entire enclosed > expression. This feature is off by default as well. Something in your .emacs turns it on. Saying that things are "off by default" and "something in your .emacs turns them on" is not really what anyone needs to hear (except _maybe_ Greg Novak, in this particular case - but I'm not sure about that). I mean, just for example, running (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration 3) in your .emacs has a different effect on subscripts in LaTeX buffers now than it did a year ago. I think the real point is that the same .emacs can produce different behavior when the emacs version (or environment) changes. But this is so obvious that no one (except persons who are extremely confused about how computers work) needs to have it pointed out to them. And it is also true & obvious that emacs versions _do_ change. As hinted at in my message http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2005-03/msg01238.html in emacs-devel, I find these discussions of "how to turn features off" to be somewhat tiresome. There are certainly plenty of legitimate questions (Karl's question yesterday comes to mind), but then there are also posts that border on being flame-bait (and which may also contain legitimate questions). The difference seems to have to do with how low-level the feature being turned off is (low-level features somehow being less contentious, remarkably). In my opinion, it would be better if Emacs handled a considerably larger portion of "on/off" concerns automatically, on a private, individual basis. See the aforementioned post for one set of ideas and conjectures about how this might be done.