Re: Dired: Improve symmetry in mark/unmark commands bound to keys

[Tino Calancha <tino.calancha@gmail.com>]

On Mon, 26 Sep 2016, John Wiegley wrote:

>>>>>> Tino Calancha <tino.calancha@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> In addition, i don't think you should unconditionaly object just because Eli
>> object.
>
> Eli and I happen to agree on this: We don't want to change a long-standing
> feature, however poorly conceived, without greater conviction. I commented in
> the bug thread on the things I'd like to see happen next.
>
> Also, you shouldn't query Richard for his opinion, you should query everyone.
> Richard is not going to countermand our decision; convince us and the
> community that it's wise to make this change, and we will. So for I think only
> 5 people total have participated in this discussion.
Sorry for that.  I missunderstood your request.  I asked him after you 
wrote in the bug report:
-----
  1. Begin a discussion on emacs-devel about the behavior of this command.
     Solicit the wisdom of other old-timers on that list. Present your case
     dispassionately, in terms of what we gain from such a change.
-----
I am still new here and i don't know who are the old-timers.  The 
first comes to my mind of course is Richard.  I wish to ask S. Kremer,
that would be great, but i have never seen him in this list so i am afraid 
he could pass away (?).  If that is the case, someone could be hurt if i 
try to contact him.
About beging a discussion on emacs-devel about this.  Well, i guess we 
already have this one: people can give us input here.  If we open another
thread we will have 1 bug report + 2 emacs-dev thread basically talking 
the same.  Not too tidy.


> I believe Eli has proposed a solution that offers a middle ground. Can we move
> to discussing that?
Yes, we can talk about that.
Eli suggestion would be consistent with Dired if, for instance:
I) C-u * . el RET
;; unmark
II) C-u C-u * . el RET
;; prompt for the marker char.

IMO we should not put extra care in one hypothetical user X who
spend 22 years doing:
C-u 65 * . el RET
I mean, we should not invert the number of C-u's in I) II), because:

1) It's impossible such X user does exists (at least in this
    Universe); and in case sh?e does exist i wish i will never face
    this person at night in a lonely dark street; or i would have a drink
    with her to explain that we are in XXI century, and now the computers
    accept text when they prompt for a character.  Who knows, maybe after
    that she pay the drinks.
2) We private zillions of 'real' Dired users to naturally unmark files
    by extension as they like to do with other Dired marking commands.