From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: display-buffer-alist simplifications Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:15:54 +0900 Message-ID: <87pqkxrgdx.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <87mxgem09k.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <4E2A7EBD.7050300@gmx.at> <87livooqt6.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <4E2B158B.1080101@gmx.at> <87wrf8iyse.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <4E2BEED2.5040608@gmx.at> <8739hvu6lh.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <4E2C50E6.3020103@gmx.at> <878vrnweju.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <4E2D34D7.4040002@gmx.at> <87mxg2fw74.fsf@mail.jurta.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1311642970 31438 80.91.229.12 (26 Jul 2011 01:16:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2011 01:16:10 +0000 (UTC) Cc: martin rudalics , Chong Yidong , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Juri Linkov Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jul 26 03:16:04 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QlWFf-00084c-2o for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 03:16:03 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55619 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QlWFe-00048G-7c for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:16:02 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:33383) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QlWFa-00048B-La for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:15:59 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QlWFZ-0004l8-Ev for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:15:58 -0400 Original-Received: from mgmt1.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.223]:46437) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QlWFY-0004k7-TY for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:15:57 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mgmt1.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 472DD3FA0718; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:15:47 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 4C9901A26F8; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:15:54 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <87mxg2fw74.fsf@mail.jurta.org> X-Mailer: VM 8.1.93a under 21.5 (beta31) "ginger" cd1f8c4e81cd XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 130.158.97.223 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:142297 Archived-At: Juri Linkov writes: > > martin, who begins feeling to weak to delve into this subject again. > > Having only one customizable variable to specify how to display a buffer > is definitely a very good thing. One problem is that currently it's > too complicated. The behavior (by which I do *not* mean any behavior that anybody has so far specified, but the *union* of all behaviors that users want) *is* *very* complicated. +1 for accepting that as a fact and getting on with the business of learning (as a project, though hopefully within a few months individual users and even many developers can mostly just accept the defaults) to use Martin's specifiers. Note that XEmacs has had specifiers (in a somewhat different sense, but the basic idea of a more or less hierarchical mapping from contexts to instances is the same) for literally decades, they are automatically merged, and with the exception of David Kastrup (a self-proclaimed Simple Mind From the City of Light :-), nobody has really complained about their complexity and merging generally DTRTs. Rather users and third-party developers have asked how to accomplish what they want to do, and generally are pleased with the results they get. Specifiers are one thing that nobody in the SXEmacs fork has suggested getting rid of, by the way. Since XEmacs specifiers are *not* used to configure buffer to window mapping, I can't promise that Martin's design will be as successful in this application, but I think it's very much worth a try. BTW, designing defaults is IMHO basically impossible. It's much more profitable (at least, if the architect is as available and responsive as Martin has been) to make the basic design as flexible as possible, start with the architect's preferences as default, and tweak, with the ongoing advice of the architect on how-to. Again, I think that it's probably a good idea to accept that the defaults for Emacs 24 will be way suboptimal (except in Martin's personal opinion :-), and aim for good defaults in 24.1 *after* a wide variety of users who usually just lurk on emacs-devel have had their say.