Re: Bad moves with xref-find-definitions

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Vitalie Spinu <spinuvit@gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2015 13:31:36 +0200
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > >  > > 1) `find-tag` (previously bound to M-.) was prompting for a symbol
> > >  > > before jumping to the definition.
> > >  > >
> > >  > You can still get the prompt, with C-u.
> > >  >
> > > That's a bit besides the point. I want my interface to behave exactly
> > > the same independently of the context at point.
> > >
> > You're talking here about the fact that M-. will prompt if there's no
> > "thing at point"?  
> >
> Yes.
> >
> > We could make it signal an error, indeed.
> 
> I would like that.

This is backwards, sorry.  M-. should be intelligent enough not to
signal errors in this situation, and neither should it require users
to navigate needlessly.  No other feature that is sensitive to "the
thing at point" behaves like that, AFAIR.

Do we really want users to hate xref starting from day one?

If this issue is controversial among users, let's have a user option
to control the default behavior -- either always prompt and use the
symbol at point, if any, for the default value, or prompt only when
there's no usable symbol at point.  Then everyone can have what they
like without unduly punishing the rest.