Re: C-d deleting region considered harmful

[Chad Brown <yandros@MIT.EDU>]

On Sep 19, 2010, at 6:21 PM, Miles Bader wrote:
>> Perhaps `C-x C-x' is the prime annoyance factor here?  It certainly was
>> for me.  Perhaps it just shouldn't activate the transient mark mode?
> 
> Not a good idea, I think, since one of the primary uses of C-x C-x is to
> re-activate the region!  [for me about 90% of the time I think...]

Not to point the ``you're wrong!'' finger, but I suspect that this is not the 
primary use of C-xC-x for *most* people, but instead is the use for a
narrow selection of people who learned to appreciate using the active 
region with the keyboard before mouse/shift-selection was really common.

I suspect that the people (like me, admittedly) who started to really learn
emacs before transient regions had already internalized C-xC-x as `hop 
between two spots', and the newer people who are used to graphical
feedback flourishes like a highlighted active region are used to setting the
mark explicitly, or using either the mouse or shift-selection.

I suggest adding a flag to invert the default meaning of ARG in
exchange-point-and-mark, at least as an experiment.  I suspect that
the new behavior would be more in line with expected behavior for most
people, but it'd be hard to determine, and it seems reasonable to
default to the existing behavior in such a situation.

I'll see if I can put together a patch and try it out.

*Chad