From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: dkcombs@panix.com (David Combs) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: emacs 22 - regular-expression isearch on spaces extremely lenient Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 05:17:31 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Message-ID: References: <2cd46e7f0604281356i582388e2kef07922b6b6a9a3a@mail.gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1148967639 18702 80.91.229.2 (30 May 2006 05:40:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 05:40:39 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue May 30 07:40:37 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Fkwxx-0005CO-Sm for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 May 2006 07:40:31 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Fkwxx-0005vB-Cl for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 May 2006 01:40:29 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!panix!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 73 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: panix1.panix.com Original-X-Trace: reader1.panix.com 1148966251 2968 166.84.1.1 (30 May 2006 05:17:31 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 05:17:31 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:139657 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:35280 Archived-At: Emacs has been such a well incrementally-designed system (what, 35, 40 years?) that it's been a real pleasure to use. What DWIM there has been of the type that when you discover a piece, in your ordinary use of emacs, that your (well, mine, anyway) reaction is NOT of the type: 1: God damn to hell -- WHY did those idiots make it do that! , but rather of the type: 2: Incredible -- this thing has not only a doctor built in to it, but a world-class *mind-reader* as well! Never once have I been confronted with some surprising behaviour that I haven't felt that it was exactly what I wanted it to do. ------ This space-->whitespaces thing seems very, very different; I haven't seen in this thread *anyone* who'd give a type-2 (above) opinion about this "feature", nor can I even *imagine* any normal emacs-user who would. So how did this thing get included? Are we all subject to whatever whim that occurs to the devel-people? Does (gnu)=Emacs *belong* to just them -- such that whatever *they* vote for becomes "law"? How many thousands, or tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people daily use emacs, in fact *rely* on emacs for their most important work? Now, maybe it's infeasible to try to get a vote from that world-user-base; but heck, aren't there a lot of people who read this newsgroup at least once a week? Why not set up a vote among all of *us* (yes, include the devel-people too)? Come up with a description of this "feature" that's acceptable to both sides on this issue, and set up some kind of a computer-based vote. (To help avoidng vote-fraud, we could limit it to those who have posted within, say, the last year or two -- and we'd suspect funny-tricks if any voter appeared twice.) ----- We really have to have some final hurdle that any controversial feature must pass before it gets included -- *especially* when it's not being defaulted "off". I've been using emacs for *so* long (since 1980 with twenex-emacs, rms on gnu jumping over the moon), even if not so expertly, that this (by now) old dog's paws have a really hard time switching now hard-wired habits and expectations. Seems like as good a time as any to set up a better procedure for (thus far) few "controversial" changes. Just my two bits -- but I hope I'm not the only one who feels like I do. David