Re: Native display of line numbers

[James Nguyen <jamesn@fastmail.com>]

> In my 20 years or so using Emacs, I can probably count on one hand the
> number of times I have really wanted/needed to see line numbers
> alongside the source code. And when I have had need for it the use has
> mainly been what Kaushal Modi also mentions, as a quick way to refer to
> one or more lines of code, immediately.

It's useful for other things too, like pair programming, "From line 22 - 33, etc...".

If you use Evil, even without Relative Numbers, it's useful to look at a line
and say Go to line 33.

Visual in memory placemarker as you scroll through code.
"Oh this is around line 900...".

Not saying there aren't other ways to achieve the goal but line numbers do
have uses..

> In any case, given the popularity of the various add-on modes which
> insist on displaying line numbers using all kinds of tricks, I don't
> think we can ignore this tendency any longer, even if we agree that
> this is a disease.

>> A pragmatic way to look at it, I think many will welcome it.

While we're on this topic, I wonder how feasible it would be to do smooth pixel
scrolling at the C layer.

> > Can you please add support for highlighting the current line number,
> > using a different face (See the highlighted line number by nlinum on
> > the right hand side)?

> Is it really important?  Why? do people really have difficulty finding
> the line where point/cursor is?

I like how nlinum highlights the current line with a different face. I think
it's a nice UI polish item. (Not everything has to be 100% for functional
                                 purposes.)

-

For Relative Numbers, a feature request would be to have the current line
represent the current line number instead of 0. I think vim 8 does that
for relative numbers.

Example:

3
2
1
456
1
2
3