Re: New feature idea: isearch with autocorrection

[Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 2:38 AM, Tom <adatgyujto@gmail.com> wrote:

> The asker wants isearch to ignore the nonmatching character if
> a later character can be used for successful matching.
>
> What do you think? It sounds useful, not having to delete the
> problematic part, but simply typing the correct characters.

It sounds useful only until you actually try something that works that
way. Then you discover that, whenever you make a typo, your fingers
subconsciously press Backspace and correct the typo before your brain
even gets to realize that you “don’t have” to erase the wrong
character.

With the proposed change, the sequence of events becomes:

1. You type the prefix. The editor finds it.
2. You make a typo. The editor does not find the new string and
ignores the last character.
3. You press Backspace. Since your typo character was ignored, you end
up erasing the last character that was correct.
4. You enter the character that would correct the typo, and probably a
few more. For the purposes of isearch, it is added to the prefix
without its last character (which you involuntarily erased at step 3).
Most probably, the editor does not find the new string and drops your
correction character and whatever subsequent characters you enter.
Maybe even beeps at you, too.
5. You say “oh s#!t” and have to look at and think about your current
search string, to resume typing from the correct character.