Re: scroll-conservatively default

[Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

  > > From: Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu>
  > > Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:20:57 -0800
  > > 
  > > 2. Defaults should not be chosen based on what people that can write
  > > their own .emacs like.
  > 
  > The point was that, given the age of this feature (see below), many
  > users would be accustomed to this behavior, so changing this
  > particular default would require them all to modify their .emacs.
  > That's be a hassle, I think.

My point is that we need to balance the hassle for the old users with
the one for new users that are not used to the behavior.

  > > Emacs should try to be consistent with the general accepted behavior
  > > of other applications. And only try to be different after very
  > > careful consideration.
  > 
  > This would be a valid argument if we were discussing some new behavior
  > that didn't exist before.  But this particular behavior (scrolling
  > when point goes outside the visible portion of the buffer) was in
  > Emacs since day one, many years ago, when practically speaking there
  > were no "other applications" to be compatible with.  So I don't see
  > how this argument applies here.

IMO it is still a valid argument. Users use many more applications
today, and there are some common behaviors that they have come to
expect. Yes, emacs pioneered many many things, and lots of features have
been adopted elsewhere. But some other things have evolved and have been
"standardized" in a different way, and we should seriously consider
changing the defaults to match what other applications are doing.