Re: C-x C-b (switch-to-buffer) smarter suggestions?

[Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se>]

On Tue, 2010-02-09, Richard Riley wrote:
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> writes:
>
>> On Mon, 2010-02-08, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>>>> Let's say I have a dozen buffers, including foo.c and foo.h.  I am in
>>>> foo.c but I want to jump to foo.h. So I do
>>>
>>>>   C-x C-b foo TAB
>>>
>>>> But this doesn't complete to foo.h, because foo.c is also an
>>>> alternative -- even though that's the buffer I'm explicitly trying to
>>>> switch *from*.
>>>
>>> Apparently, you haven't yet upgraded to Emacs-23.
>>
>> So you're implying that Emacs 23 fixes exactly that, or that it
>> reworks the buffer selection interface completely?
>>
>> Actually I still use Emacs 21. Emacs 22 is also available as part of
>> Debian Linux, but I gain more by sticking to 21, which is the one
>> available at work (semi-officially available -- officially we are
>> stuck with 20).
>
> Interesting. I find it astonishing that anyone would insist on using
> such an old version. Are your customisations so incompatible with newer
> Emacs? The call of the daemon and anti aliased fonts would be enough to
> move for most .. Or do you just have an intransigent BOFH?

I don't know, but for the Emacs 20 part (20.7, installed on Solaris in
2000 according to time stamps) my guess is a combination of:

- lack of attention to the Solaris environment when more and more
  work is done on Linux
- outsourcing of BOFH activities
- hard to know what problems an upgrade would cause for hundreds of
  users; hard to know exactly *who* they are and what features they
  have come to rely on
- maintaining an existing development environment = bad career move;
  implementing new, complex, proprietary and expensive = good move
- the programmers who really care install their own newer Emacs and
  tell noone about it
- Emacs 20 is still a very good text editor

I don't think it's uncommon for organizations to end up in that
situation, unfortunately.  But I wouldn't want to live at the bleeding
edge either ...

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .  .
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