From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Drew Adams Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: RE: delete-selection-mode as default (WAS: Some developement questions) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2018 08:12:26 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: References: <83k1nxvm5j.fsf@gnu.org> <20180909134529.GB6047@ACM> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1536505863 21667 195.159.176.226 (9 Sep 2018 15:11:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2018 15:11:03 +0000 (UTC) Cc: hw@adminart.net, spacibba@aol.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org, Noam Postavsky , phillip.lord@russet.org.uk To: Alan Mackenzie , Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Sep 09 17:10:58 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1fz1MX-0005V9-6z for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 09 Sep 2018 17:10:57 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47693 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fz1Od-0005nM-HV for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 09 Sep 2018 11:13:07 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:42064) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fz1OO-0005iK-3v for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 09 Sep 2018 11:12:57 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fz1OE-0002MY-Ge for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 09 Sep 2018 11:12:43 -0400 Original-Received: from userp2130.oracle.com ([156.151.31.86]:36988) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fz1O9-0002Hg-0L; Sun, 09 Sep 2018 11:12:37 -0400 Original-Received: from pps.filterd (userp2130.oracle.com [127.0.0.1]) by userp2130.oracle.com (8.16.0.22/8.16.0.22) with SMTP id w89F9N7a174157; Sun, 9 Sep 2018 15:12:29 GMT DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=oracle.com; h=mime-version : message-id : date : from : sender : to : cc : subject : references : in-reply-to : content-type : content-transfer-encoding; s=corp-2018-07-02; bh=ZIg2VrVJP0UOEgLVV9Y5KZPCyvQsxmqVlUhqeyF1JRo=; b=WLWBA7NK8ilWoG4Hh5n35fV2q9JfYkjtx+RJ2+XhDLea8fnomZ6CxClVf5m2pvtIKC8X rjLocMKlr4lBlQMf00Lri9u8QnG7WwK0kiq2IWilDn9UiuXRUGKqiQpex+Hk2Jnm+e7c 0CH7v4CcHjmWYffkupou9qBYsOelPRVXZjk1qkqoEIDdvcKolTYorUUkGZxLx0w8E1Xn U+mJvd67uUvqBCUOR1VckzrKcthI7TUhNqKMsmq4lMl3UgK/qsdIt+JT5Dy+B+1uQD71 HHRMHv4EsuonyfvbuHmeu9JTCSVuOnsXvW7emMnHMFZUJX5whfMklksARckY2lp1aKBj WQ== Original-Received: from aserv0021.oracle.com (aserv0021.oracle.com [141.146.126.233]) by userp2130.oracle.com with ESMTP id 2mc5ut2mmt-1 (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=OK); Sun, 09 Sep 2018 15:12:29 +0000 Original-Received: from aserv0121.oracle.com (aserv0121.oracle.com [141.146.126.235]) by aserv0021.oracle.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id w89FCSLs004773 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=OK); Sun, 9 Sep 2018 15:12:28 GMT Original-Received: from abhmp0003.oracle.com (abhmp0003.oracle.com [141.146.116.9]) by aserv0121.oracle.com (8.14.4/8.13.8) with ESMTP id w89FCRJW019347; Sun, 9 Sep 2018 15:12:27 GMT In-Reply-To: <20180909134529.GB6047@ACM> X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Oracle Beehive Extensions for Outlook 2.0.1.9.1 (1003210) [OL 16.0.4735.0 (x86)] X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version: vendor=nai engine=5900 definitions=9011 signatures=668708 X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details: rule=notspam policy=default score=0 suspectscore=0 malwarescore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 spamscore=0 mlxscore=0 mlxlogscore=909 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx scancount=1 engine=8.0.1-1807170000 definitions=main-1809090167 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 156.151.31.86 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:229563 Archived-At: > No, you're not the only disliker of d-s-mode. I utterly detest it, to > the point that Emacs's lack of this feature was one of the things which > attracted me to Emacs in the first place. At last, an editing program > with a rational, well thought out interface! A thing I hated about these > other programs was that I could have spent a long time building up a > (highlighted) region in them, only to lose it irretrievably on carelessly > typing an arrow key without .=20 Why "irretrievably"? What happens if you hit `C-w' by mistake? Do you lose the cut text irretrievably? > I appreciate that Emacs's d-s-mode doesn't suffer all these > drawbacks, but it does suffer some of them. >=20 > I believe delete-selection-mode is objectively bad; deleting/killing > potentially large areas of text should not occur as a side effect of > something whose main action is smalll (like inserting a single > character).=20 You conceive of the action in question as being just to insert a character. But if the region is active and d-s-m is on then the action is replace the region with the character. Who controls whether the action is to do one or the other? You do, by activating or not activating the region. Your choice. Nothing requires you to activate the region and then insert the char. You can insert it without activating the region first. With `transient-mark-mode' came the concept and behavior of an active region. Emacs is great by having a region that can be either inactive or active. You can still use an inactive region (as I'm sure you know and do), so perhaps "active" is a bit of a misnomer. The point of activating the region is to act on it. One way of acting on it is to replace it, and when d-s-m is on that can happen by yanking or typing replacement text. Who controls whether the region is active? You do. Who controls whether and how to act on the active region? You do. Who controls whether d-s-m is on or off? You do. If someone wants to complain about a command unnecessarily doing two things ("side effect") then s?he could start by blaming `C-x C-x'. Why does it not only swap point and mark but also activate the region? The answer, no doubt, is that someone (who introduced t-m-m and region "activation") thought that's handy behavior (saves a keystroke). Exactly the same kind of handiness comes from d-s-m performing an implicit `C-w' (for most commands, although that's configurable per command). > As well as being bad UI, it violates the "do one thing and > do it well" principle. Tell that to `C-x C-x' ;-). And to any number of other Emacs commands - maybe most! > In the current polling exercise, I would urge those interpreting the > responses to take account not merely of the numbers of > supporters/detractors but the strength of feeling behind those responses. > I've seen several such that strongly dislike d-s-mode, but haven't seen > any saying "I utterly detest editors lacking delete-selection-mode". > That suggests to me that we should not enable this mode by default. Where's the poll, BTW? I fully expect support for d-s-m to lose the vote at this point (but not in a few decades ;-)), but I support taking a poll. It should of course be a user poll, not just a poll of this mailing list.