Re: Why fido, icycles, ido, icomplete

[Ergus <spacibba@aol.com>]

On Thu, Nov 07, 2019 at 12:59:13AM +0100, �scar Fuentes wrote:
>Ergus <spacibba@aol.com> writes:
>
>> I actually have very strong feelings behind ido in 2019 (I know I am a
>> sort of apostate for this). But I think it is something that needs to be
>> removed/deprecated/substituted for the good of newer alternatives like
>> icomplete. So new users will try more maintained/ modern/ powerful/
>> better integrated alternatives: like icomplete/ivy/helm.
>
>Ido is not used by default. What good does to remove it?
>
Who is maintaining ido these days? Who fixes the issues related with
ido?  Which sense makes to develop and improve all the completion
infrastructure and design if the users can't take advantage of it
because nobody touches ido?

Should we be stocked in 2001 because ido is hard do maintain?

>> The intention is to move the users to the newer functionalities so they
>> can get the best possible first impression.
>
>New users are not exposed to ido at all. So I don't get your point.
>

Reduce confusion, so users don't have to ask like me why are there so
many alternatives; a clearer view of what's around, what's being more
maintained, what's more functional, where the are investing more effort
the developers.

>> From the software point of view it is "complex" to keep such a big piece
>> of code that nobody wants to touch anymore... specially if we already
>> have alternatives for it.
>
>People are not forced to work on Ido. They do because they want.
>

By touch I mean maintain, integrate and update with the new features;
also fix issues.

Recommend ido today will just disappoint users and limit their view of
emacs as it is today. New users (that we should also attract) have a
very hard learning curve in front of them; we must not make it
harder. And ido is not by far the best we have to offer anymore.

We don't have either enough man power (and even with that it makes no
sense) to maintain 4 packages with exactly the same functionality.

>> I think Abo-abo actually tried to modify ido to improve it and he
>> finally ended implementing ivy... was easier that way.
>
>I tried Ivy and decided that it is clearly inferior to my ido config.
>YMMV.
>
This is a personal taste... Many more users are with helm or ivy these
days... so "clearly inferior" is a very personal opinion in your case.

My suggestion here will be to start using fido-mode and help fixing it
until it can completely replace ido in functionality as it is based on
icomplete and integrates better with the rest of the infrastructure.

In my opinion ido should be deprecated and moved as a separated project
in Elpa. And nothing limits icomplete to become more powerful and
functional.

>Can we stop prentending there is One True Way of doing things?
>
There are many approximations to The True; but true is always only
One True... and nobody knows it. That's why we need to keep searching.