From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Lars Ingebrigtsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: A Modest Proposal Date: Sun, 01 May 2016 01:38:00 +0200 Organization: Programmerer Ingebrigtsen Message-ID: <874mai4qhz.fsf@gnus.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1462059547 10528 80.91.229.3 (30 Apr 2016 23:39:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2016 23:39:07 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun May 01 01:38:58 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aweTO-0006EE-47 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 01 May 2016 01:38:54 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60101 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aweTK-0007mm-F7 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 30 Apr 2016 19:38:50 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:45409) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aweT1-0007Nd-Ls for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 30 Apr 2016 19:38:47 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aweSp-0000AI-Sz for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 30 Apr 2016 19:38:26 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:34541) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aweSp-00008j-Lu for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 30 Apr 2016 19:38:19 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aweSb-0005t5-Kt for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 01 May 2016 01:38:05 +0200 Original-Received: from cm-84.215.1.64.getinternet.no ([84.215.1.64]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 01 May 2016 01:38:05 +0200 Original-Received: from larsi by cm-84.215.1.64.getinternet.no with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 01 May 2016 01:38:05 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Mail-Followup-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-Lines: 50 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: cm-84.215.1.64.getinternet.no Mail-Copies-To: never User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.1.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:WekuTInxmA2pbmhp14yuhneEppE= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:203464 Archived-At: I've been on the couch with a cold for the past few days, so I've been doing documentation and doc string tweaks to avoid going crazy with boredom. (It was either that or watch Murder She Wrote.) I've been reminded this time over that (apart from the many pieces of Emacs that I know nothing about), there are two areas I don't really like touching: Customize and dired. Customize: When I try to chase down a rendering bug or ... anything, I'm seldom able to. Everything seems to happen somewhere else. In addition, it does a lot of stuff with overlays instead of text overlays (which I find more convenient to interface with, especially when debugging). And looking at the number of commit messages, perhaps I'm not the only one. Perhaps it's time just to throw in the towel and reimplement it from scratch? I'm talking about the user interface only, of course. The `defcustom' language etc etc etc are fine as they are. Perhaps we could just start generating HTML write a new interface on top of shr or something? Or gtk+? I dunno. But I think it's an idea that somebody who's looking for a nice little project should consider. Dired: I think the basic design is misguided. There is so much talk about matching up "ls" parameters to internal stuff that it makes my head swim. (Even if I'm not feverish.) C'mon. We're not barbarians. We can read directories ourselves. In addition, dired (in some places) tries to use the visual representation in the buffer for something useful, which limits what can and can't be displayed. Specifying what files to work on as a regexp is just kinda nauseating. (Did I mention my cold?) It has been mentioned that the reliance on "ls" would enable a future more async version of dired, but we can use the async.el library for that just as well, without all the drawbacks. So that's another little project for somebody: Implement a dired clone from a UI interface standpoint, but implement it in a more flexible way. Then we can make dired obsolete in a few years. -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no