From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
Cc: cyd@stupidchicken.com, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Documentation of transient-mark-mode is sloppy, wrong, and confused.
Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 13:13:11 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20090529131311.GE2793@muc.de> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <831vq85ict.fsf@gnu.org>
Hi, Eli!
On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 01:11:30PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 09:27:09 +0000
> > Cc: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>, cyd@stupidchicken.com,
> > emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
> > My definition says "a region is
> > active, when ....
> You are replacing a possibly obscure definition with one that is even
> more obscure. Your text says "a region is active when it is an object
> manipulated by commands XXX, YYY, ZZZ, etc." I cannot make heads or
> tails of this definition. And even if I could, it is not instrumental,
> I cannot apply this definition to know when the region is active and
> when it isn't.
I think what you come up with below is more or less the same as I was
trying to construct. But I'm glad we agree about what the definition is
needed for.
> I'm guessing that you wanted to say something like "region is active
> when these and those commands operate on the region only, as opposed to
> the entire buffer." But that is a circular definition, because the
> manual will say in a short while that "when region is active, some
> commands operate on the region rather than on the whole buffer."
I think that isn't circularity, it's repetition - the first bit stands on
its own. Even if it is formally circular, I think its meaning is clear.
We're in danger of descending into philosophy, here.
> So I think trying to go in this direction will result in an impasse.
It would result in something better than what was there before, even if
perhaps not 100% formally valid.
> > Do you agree or disagree with me that this is what "active" means,
> > regardless of my clumsy way of saying it?
> I disagree. You in effect say how an active region changes behavior of
> Emacs commands, which is exactly what you didn't like in the original
> text.
I'm not sure whether that's a fair criticism or not. The original "Mark"
page didn't define "active" at all. Yidong's second amendment still
didn't define "active", instead describing how you made a region
"active". The one in the middle? I can't remember it exactly, and
cvs.savannah.gnu.org is down at the moment. There was something about it
which either didn't define "active", or wasn't clearly a definition.
Defining a state by saying what its effect on Emacs is is the canonical
way to define it.
> > If you disagree, what do think "active" actually does mean?
> How about something along the following lines:
> The region can be in one of two states: active or inactive. When
> the region is active, certain Emacs commands automatically operate
> on the text in the region, instead of on the whole buffer. For
> example, bla-bla-bla. By contrast, an inactive region can only be
> operated upon by commands specially designed for that job, such as
> @code{call-process-region}, @code{count-lines-region},
> @code{write-region}, etc.
> When the region is active, the function @code{region-active-p}
> returns a non-@code{nil} value.
> The region becomes active when:
> <describe here the various ways of activating the region>
> WDYT?
I pretty much agree with you. Except, Davis has discerned that we have
been using "active" in two incompatible ways.
--
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2009-05-29 13:13 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 33+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2009-05-28 12:29 Documentation of transient-mark-mode is sloppy, wrong, and confused Alan Mackenzie
2009-05-28 16:54 ` Chong Yidong
2009-05-28 20:15 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-05-28 20:48 ` Chong Yidong
2009-05-28 23:03 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-05-28 23:53 ` Davis Herring
2009-05-29 11:01 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-05-29 0:21 ` Chong Yidong
2009-05-29 1:55 ` Stefan Monnier
2009-05-29 4:30 ` Kevin Rodgers
2009-05-29 5:47 ` Andreas Roehler
2009-05-29 8:25 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2009-05-29 8:58 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-06-01 2:34 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2009-06-01 9:40 ` Lennart Borgman
2009-06-02 6:23 ` Andreas Roehler
2009-06-02 11:50 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2009-05-29 8:37 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-05-29 9:27 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-05-29 10:11 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-05-29 13:13 ` Alan Mackenzie [this message]
2009-05-29 14:19 ` Stefan Monnier
2009-05-29 16:40 ` Drew Adams
2009-05-29 22:20 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-05-30 0:11 ` Drew Adams
2009-05-29 9:55 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2009-05-29 10:14 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-06-01 2:09 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2009-05-29 10:45 ` Andreas Roehler
2009-05-29 8:38 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-05-29 9:35 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-05-29 9:48 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-05-29 13:17 ` Alan Mackenzie
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