Re: completing-read depricated initial-input

[carlmarcos--- via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>]

Jun 21, 2022, 07:56 by help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org:

>
> Have been reading the docstring of `completing-read`.
>
> (completing-read PROMPT COLLECTION &optional PREDICATE REQUIRE-MATCH
> INITIAL-INPUT HIST DEF INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD)
>
> INITIAL-INPUT states that this feature is deprecated - it is best to pass nil
> for INITIAL-INPUT and supply the default value DEF instead.  
>
> When do you plan to remove the `INITIAL-INPUT` argument from `completing-read`?
>
I differ with the plan to depricate `INITIAL-INPUT`.  This is because it is useful to immediately
show a value when using `completing-read`.  New users do not usually know many keybinding sequences such as `M-n` to show `DEF`.  Besides the utility of having an initial value that is different from a default.

Particularly when using `t` for `REQUIRE-MATCH`, it is useful to already have an initial value.  An alternative is to allow the first entry in the sequence to show up, but then continue with the second element in the list when the user wants to traverse through the remaining options.

For cases where `REQUIRE-MATCH` is `nil`, it is reasonable not to put anything in the user entry of `complete-read`.