Re: Buffers with buffers (transclusion)

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Vladimir Kazanov <vekazanov@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2024 09:38:06 +0100
> Cc: James Thomas <jimjoe@gmx.net>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Firstly, all of the editing always happens in one of the windows, not
> across windows: search/replace, occur, grep. Having things in one
> buffer makes these things as easy as editing a single small file.

If the problem is to have some editing commands affect several
buffers, we could implement such a feature without bringing all the
text into a single buffer.  I'm guessing implementing such a feature
will be easier and will have fewer conceptual problems than splicing
text from different sources.

> Also, the number of windows that can be comfortably used in this
> manner is limited. 2? 3? 4?

With the displays we have nowadays, I'd say even 10 is not a problem,
and probably more.

What are the use cases where you need more separate sources?

> Doing this within a single window is just simpler.

It isn't, IMO.  It raises several conceptual problems that are hard to
solve.  E.g., if you type text between the end of SRC1 and the
beginning of SRC2, to which source is this added?  Or how do you
handle font-lock?  Or what do you do if each source has its own major
mode?  And there are other similar issues, solving which will be
difficult even conceptually.

> Then, there's a performance question. One thing is to work on a 1-2k
> LOC, another is to jump between buffers potentially having tens of
> thousands of LOCs.

Why do you envision a performance problem here?