Re: Upcoming merge of adaptive-wrap

[Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com>]

Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev> writes:

> If you're talking about getting a feature known to the maximum number
> of users possible (and not just hardcore ones who are with us for
> decades and scrutinize every new release), a lot of those potential
> users either have been using Emacs a while and don't read NEWS for
> every release, or will install their first Emacs of some later version
> than the one that the feature X has been added (and thus will miss all
> older NEWS files).

I have been using Emacs for "a while", and I read NEWS with every new
release with no difficulty whatsoever.  Regardless of the extent of our
users' inclination to read NEWS, Emacs's facilities for searching
through multiple files are more than adequate for locating features
there, and even if not, it is not reasonable to argue that a drastic
difference in detail is nullified by arranging items in a one-line
format.  Compare:

  adaptive-wrap  Smart line-wrapping with wrap-prefix

with:

* Editing Changes in Emacs 30.1

** New minor mode 'visual-wrap-prefix-mode'.

When enabled, continuation lines displayed for a folded long line will
receive a 'wrap-prefix' automatically computed from surrounding context
by the function 'fill-context-prefix', which generally indents
continuation lines as if the line were filled with 'M-q', or similar.

I don't think any of us are capable of arguing with a straight face that
the first example will earn adaptive-wrap more users than will the
second.  Not to mention that other documentation will be installed to
accommodate users who are not upgrading Emacs, which you have not taken
into account at all.

> 1139 one-liner summaries, OTOH, are always searchable with C-s.

And how do you suggest users search for adaptive-wrap, armed with little
information beyond that feature's behavior?  For the terse descriptions
in the package list to be useful, the user must already be aware of the
name of the package being sought or the description its author has
chosen.