Re: Bikeshedding go! Why is <M-f4> unbound?

[Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 2:45 AM, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:
>> > Why shouldn't it?
>>
>> Because it makes Emacs harder to use (especially for new users).
>
> No harder than learning that C-d in Emacs is not the same as in shell, or that
> C-s in Emacs is not the same as in most apps.

I have said a lot of times here on Emacs Devel that more details that
makes it different matter because it makes it more complex to learn
Emacs. And complexity is probably in many cases rather an exponential
function of differing details than a linear function of it.

Is there something unclear about that argument? (Yes, I can explain it
more in details, but I have not felt the need here.)


>> > Should Emacs not "actively shadow" `C-c' or `C-d' or ... when
>> > launched from a shell, because those keys mean somthing to
>> > the shell?
>>
>> That is not what I meant by "shadow".
>
> You didn't say what you meant by it.  How is it different?  You are arguing that
> a key that has some action outside Emacs should necessarily have the same action
> inside Emacs.  You didn't mention shell, but I did.  What's the diff?

It is a similar situation but Emacs position is the master in this
case while the operating system is the master in the case we are
discussing. We try to avoid complexities when interacting with
subprocesses by presenting them in similar ways to Emacs users. I
think that is good. What I am saying is that I believe it is good to
present Emacs in a similar way to users as other apps - as long as it
does not hamper Emacs.

Actually I believe you think that is good too since you have not
really said anything against it.


>> > Since when should Emacs simply reflect outside key bindings?
>>
>> The invisible Emacs. Everywhere. ;-)
>
> Dunno what that means.  Sounds more like "Windows everywhere", to me.

Yes. I am just mirroring your argument which I found absurd. ;-)


>> > The question is about _this_ key.
>>
>> Which does not prevent the discussion to be more general.
>
> But your general arguments don't help answer the question about _this_ key.

Why not? I am surprised by that argument.