RE: [External] : Re: command mode-specificity [was: scratch/command 064f146 1/2: Change...]

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> > How about just "most commands are not mode-specific"?
> 
> That's not my experience.

Stats, please.

> Whenever I use M-x (and I do it a lot, since on my setup it is often
> more ergonomic and faster than remembering and pressing shortcuts) I
> see on the list of completions lots of commands that have nothing to do
> with what I'm doing.

That provides zero info about whether most commands
are mode-specific.  Sorry.

What that indicates is that there are lots of
commands (maybe even most commands) that are not
relevant to what you're currently doing.

That's a completely different ball game.

`M-x TAB' _of course_ shows zillions of commands
that most likely have nothing to do with what
you're currently doing.  And?

Likewise `M-x f TAB', but less so most likely.

> This forces me to write more characters on the
> prompt to further refine the candidates

Well, yes.

If you're in mode `foo', it's likely that many
commands relevant for that mode start with `foo',
in which case `M-x foo TAB' might get you on
your way.  But yes, Emacs doesn't currently
guess "what you're doing", i.e., just what you
have in mind.

> and remember to not use certain inputs which
> bring in lots of irrelevant candidates just
> because the naming scheme they follow.

> Even worse: for any given input to M-x, the
> list of completions greatly vary depending
> on what I previously did on the Emacs session
> (as features are loaded and inject their commands.)

Yes, and we can look for features that might
help with such problems.  And if you find one
such, I encourage you to write it up in a
library and put it out there for people to try.

Time will tell how useful the feature is, and
you'll likely even get useful feedback to
improve it.

All of that is positive.  Emacs can always use
improvement, including in command selection.

You don't have to convince anyone here that
`M-x' is a fairly blunt hammer.  The convincing
that's called for is to support a given
proposed solution/improvement.

You argue that filtering out some set of
commands at the outset is an improvement.

Counter arguments were provide for not doing
such filtering - with that particular filter,
_by default_.  Counter arguments mentioned
interactive ways to filter, or to sort instead
of filtering.

I don't think anyone is against letting you
filter in the way you think best.  It's about
what behavior Emacs `M-x' should have, by
default, no?