Re: BIKESHED: completion faces

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2019 21:51:33 +0100
> From: Ergus <spacibba@aol.com>
> Cc: João Távora <joaotavora@gmail.com>,
> 	emacs-devel@gnu.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, dgutov@yandex.ru
> 
> 1) It is the behaviour that the users expect, so familiar for them and
> that will reduce learning curve (we have enough curve for a newbie).

You mean, _some_ users.  With that caveat, I agree.

> 2) We should be modest and think that if most of the other editors
> follow a similar approach there should be a reason for that. (also
> private companies invest time and money in social market studies about
> what option is better... that's why MS windows is blue and have changes
> among the years, or the start button is in the left down corner)

I don't think it's right for us to blindly follow what other editors
do without (a) deciding positively that it's a good idea for Emacs,
and (b) making sure the new feature is adapted to the basic Emacs
operation.  One issue I have with "the other editors" in this regard
is that the way their completion UI works (specifically, how the
candidates are presented) is many times very different from what we
have in Emacs, so it will only work well to copy their faces if that
makes sense in the context of Emacs completion UI.

In any case, I already said I agree to have this as an optional
behavior.  We could have a special minor mode which will turn on
whatever features we think people who come from other editors will
expect.  Many current Emacs defaults started that way, and I think
it's a prudent way of introducing a feature that radically changes
some part of our UI.