Re: Honoring traditional defaults [was: Transient Mark Mode on by default]

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hi, Stephen!

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 07:15:10AM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> The only reason not to make Windows/Mac-like behavior the default that
> makes sense to me is if we think that traditional Emacs behavior is
> *clearly* superior for *most* beginners, enough to make it worth a
> short period of confusion and annoyance while they learn to use the
> Emacs behaviors.  For something as controversial (and deservedly so)
> as t-m-m, I think trying the change at this stage in the release cycle
> is a good idea.

FWIW, I think that the trad Emacs way is clearly superior.  The fact that
I use Emacs enthusiastically bears this out.

> On the other hand, the "everything I need to know about Emacs I
> learned in kindergarten" crowd *should* have a "revert to tradition"
> customization available.  Something like an alist of prior defaults
> for customizable variables, having the form ((VAR (VERSION
> PRIOR-DEFAULT) ...) ...), where VAR is the symbol naming a
> customizable variable, VERSION is a version string identifying a point
> of change, and PRIOR-DEFAULT the previous default value.

The whole point of this thread is (or, at least, should be and was) how
the _default_ Emacs looks, what "emacs -Q" gets you.  The fact that all
of us here can configure Emacs to Alpha Centauri and back again is beside
the mark.

I am not worried what TMM will do to _my_ Emacs - it'll make me add
another line to my .emacs.  I _do_ worry, and worry a lot, that newcomers
might never come to grok the delightful conceptual unity of the Emacs
mark - and that their use of it will thus forever be inefficient.

[ .... ]

> If desired, there could also be a customizable variable for
> determining how far back to turn the clock, something like
> `emacs-version-for-prior-defaults'.  Presumably Alan would set this to
> "18.59" or so<wink>.

No, I don't think so.  18.59 is a bit behind the times.  I'd probably go
for 19.34.   

[ .... ]

:-)

> IMO this handles changes in defaults with a minimum of annoyance to
> those with a classical education while making it possible to change
> defaults to something more friendly to the GUI generation.

See above.  Some of us on this list think that the GUI crowd should be
encouraged to learn some Latin and Greek.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).