Re: C-h C-i

[Karl Fogel <kfogel@floss.red-bean.com>]

Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org> writes:
> Karl Fogel <kfogel@floss.red-bean.com> writes:
> > `C-h C-i' may be unbound now, but another use might be found for it
> > later, one better than simply duplicating what `C-h i' does right now.
> > If we bind it to something common and important like `info', it'd be
> > hard to change that later.
> 
> I don't suggest to make `C-h C-i' an official keybinding for `info'
> by documenting it everywhere.  What I propose is only to add it
> to help.el as a catcher for cases when users mistype `C-h i'
> which now is very probable when switching between Info buffer with
> key sequences like C-1 C-h i C-2 C-h i C-3 C-h i C-4 C-h i C-5 C-h i.
> 
> If we find a better use for `C-h C-i' later, we can freely rebind it,
> since we don't advertise it as an official keybinding for `info'.

(Has Emacs ever used such an "unofficial keybinding" policy before?)

I really don't think it's worth optimizing for such narrow use cases
by making a special keybinding, especially when the consequence of
mistyping right now is merely that nothing happens.

There are two possible outcomes here, both undesirable IMHO:

   1. That key sequence is not used very often... In which case, the
      benefit of adding this keybinding is correspondingly small.

or

   2. That key sequence is used fairly often... In which case, the new
      binding would be something people *do* grow to depend on,
      whether we document it "officially" or not, and therefore we'd
      effectively lose the ability to bind it to something different
      in the future.

-Karl