Re: The window-pub branch

[martin rudalics <rudalics@gmx.at>]

 > Then what about
 >   (defun switch-to-buffer (b) (display-buffer b 'special))

This could be done.

 >> `set-window-buffer' _is_ low-level.  Emacs needs some mechanism to
 >> bypass whatever people do in `my-display-buffer'.
 >
 > Saying "Emacs" you insist on the absence of architecture.

Why?

 > Maybe
 > you agree that direct access of application code to functions such
 > as 'split-window' and 'set-window-buffer' doesn't play well with
 > any attempts to wrap them into more user-friendly behavior.

I agree.  Though there are occasions where an application wants to have
full control over the frame layout - gud and ediff, for example.

But why be user-friendly in the first place if users only need hooks for
calling their own functions instead ;-)

 > Where a "wrapper" is a piece of code with exclusive access to the
 > functionality that it wraps.  There must be no way to bypass the
 > wrapper except for the wrapper itself.

It would only take a few seconds before someone asked for a way to
bypass such a wrapper programmatically.

 >> There's no single entry point for "hiding a buffer".  The nearest
 >> equivalent is probably `switch-to-prev-buffer'.  But sometimes the
 >> window gets deleted before and in the worst case *scratch* must be
 >> recreated to show some buffer in the window.
 >
 > I'm not interested in the details of existing bugs.  I'm only
 > interested whether your new design is able to get past them.

This is not about a bug.  It's about what Emacs has to do in order to
prevent crashing.

 >>...  It's hardly possible to tell whether a buffer
 >> shown in a window was effectively put there by `display-buffer' or by
 >> `set-window-buffer'.
 >
 > One more point for not allowing applications to mess with
 > 'set-window-buffer' (and friends).

Demandons l'impossible.

 >  "A feature called substructure redirect allows a window manager to
 >   intercept any requests to map, move, resize, or change the border
 >   width of windows. This allows the window manager to modify these
 >   requests, if necessary, to ensure that they meet its window layout
 >   policy."
 >
 > Which in other words means a single hook that is sufficient for
 > everything a window-manager might want to do.

Doesn't `window-configuration-change-hook' get near to that?  Though it
seems to me that you want to put yourself into the window manager's seat
here.

martin