Re: file-name-shadow-mode

[Miles Bader <snogglethorpe@gmail.com>]

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:30:57 -0600 (CST), Luc Teirlinck
<teirllm@dms.auburn.edu> wrote:
> In other words, rfn-eshadow.el assumes that the value of _every_
> environment variable is an absolute file name and it yields very
> confusing results when other environment variables are used in file
> names, say "/home/$USER".

Well I'm obviously biased, but:

I doubt 99% of the people out there use environment variables while
typing filenames _at all_.  However I'm probably one of the few that
does -- in fact I use them heavily -- and I've _never_ wanted to use a
relative filename from one.

The functionality of rfn-eshadow is quite useful to the vast majority
of users, and indeed is much-requested, and you want to not enable it
because you found a minor flaw?  A flaw whose only effect is to make
the prompt slightly less clear that it could be?  I expect that the
traditional "double slash" behavior of Emacs filename input -- which
is what rfn-eshadow fixes -- confuses far, _far_, more people.

[I think it's probably possible to fix this -- e.g., by generating a
regexp of all non-absolute environment variables and glomming it onto
the rexexp used for filenames.  But my basic point is that it scarcely
matters.]

-Miles
-- 
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.