Re: delete-selection-mode as default

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Eli and Drew.

On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 21:30:28 +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2018 10:42:21 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> > Cc: yurivkhan@gmail.com, hw@adminart.net, spacibba@aol.com,
> >         joostkremers@fastmail.fm, npostavs@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org,
> >         acm@muc.de, phillip.lord@russet.org.uk

> > > > What's the real use case for such temporary enabling/disabling of d-s-m?
> > > > And how is it different from just, well, enabling/disabling d-s-m?

> > > People who are against turning on delete-selection-mode presented
> > > several such use cases.

> > I don't think so. I think you just postulated it, without any example.
> > Did someone who is against using d-s-m actually say that s?he
> > wanted to use it temporarily (and without turning d-s-m on,
> > whatever that means)?

> > But I could be wrong - it's a long thread. Feel free to point us to
> > some mention by someone of such a use case. Or if that's not
> > possible, please remind us of (describe) such a case.

> Look for messages from Alan and Richard.  I cannot afford searching
> for them, life is too short.

I think you mean the following reply to me, which I quote in full for
Drew's benefit:

*************************************************************************
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2018 13:56:27 +0300
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
To: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
CC: drew.adams@oracle.com, yurivkhan@gmail.com, hw@adminart.net,
spacibba@aol.com, joostkremers@fastmail.fm, npostavs@gmail.com,
emacs-devel@gnu.org, phillip.lord@russet.org.uk
Subject: Re: delete-selection-mode as default
X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x
[generic]
X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e

> Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2018 10:20:16 +0000
> Cc: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>, yurivkhan@gmail.com,
> hw@adminart.net,
>   spacibba@aol.com, joostkremers@fastmail.fm, npostavs@gmail.com,
>   emacs-devel@gnu.org, phillip.lord@russet.org.uk
> From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
>
> I can't help feeling that this isn't the right approach.  I feel that
> it
> will increase complexity which the new features won't justify.  I know
> I'm speaking as an "extremist" (i.e. no transient-mark-mode at all)
> here,
> but still: I think having to press a key sequence before d-s-m would
> work
> would take the purpose of d-s-m away - that key sequence might as well
> be
> C-w.

People who want delete-selection-mode enabled by default won't need to
type that additional key, because for them the region will already
have the correct state.  delete-selection-mode will take care of that.

It is those who do NO want delete-selection-mode turned on by default,
people like you and me, who will be ABLE to use delete-selection-mode
by typing an extra key.  Those users will also be capable of
"activating" and "deactivating" the region like transient-mark-mode
does with a single command, thus allowing them to invoke commands that
act on an "active" region without turning on transient-mark-mode
globally.

> You seem to be proposing to associate a three-value state with the
> region, which state users could change with key sequences.  I can see
> this being more confusing than the current two-value state (or is it
> 2.5?) we currently have.

It cannot be more confusing, because for those who already turn on
transient-mark-mode and/or delete-selection-mode it leaves the matters
exactly like they are.  It actually should _improve_ on that by
letting those users temporarily turn on/off those modes for the
purposes of processing a given region by one or more commands.

> It might well be that, having introduced transient-mark-mode as a
> default, a certain degree of confusion in Emacs is unavoidable.  If so,
> does it make sense to spend a lot of effort which might merely switch
> the
> confusion to somewhere else?  Assuming that we'd want to have options
> to
> retain all the "old" behaviour, I think it would be difficult to avoid
> increasing the confusion.

I hope you will now reconsider this remark.

> I've interacted somewhat with hw, who's been driving this thread, and
> come to the conclusion that he doesn't really want to use Emacs.

That's irrelevant for the purposes of my proposal.  I do want to use
Emacs, and so I hope do you.
*************************************************************************

And yes, Eli, I do want to use Emacs, very much so!

I remain genuinely sceptical about the ideas for en/disabling
delete-selection-mode.  I'm convinced neither that they're a good idea,
nor a bad idea.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).