From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: line-move-visual Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:33:34 -0400 Message-ID: References: <089883ee-0a63-4cb4-a0ec-d2fe4e71cc03@y18g2000prn.googlegroups.com> <87wruco5yq.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <87wrubfd8p.fsf@rapttech.com.au> <848w6ndwn0.fsf@cs.bham.ac.uk> <87d3vx5cku.fsf@gmail.com> <87bpbcrdk5.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291835296 29900 80.91.229.12 (8 Dec 2010 19:08:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 19:08:16 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Dec 08 20:08:12 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PQPN4-0007va-5A for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 20:08:10 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:48166 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQPN3-0006bo-Gx for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 14:08:09 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!news2.google.com!npeer02.iad.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!post01.iad.highwinds-media.com!newsfe15.iad.POSTED!7564ea0f!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:VDRVAO2qsZP+QGa/ojxKqtuWwZ4= Original-Lines: 47 Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@UsenetServer.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:33:40 UTC Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:179007 comp.emacs:100068 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:75854 Archived-At: > Judgment call is ok, and none of us can claim that we are perfect at that. > But what concerns me is that after seeing all the discussion here, you still > maintain that you "don't regret the decision" because a lot of people like > it. So, are you opening Emacs to potentially unsafe changes in an effort to > get people to like it? Getting people to like Emacs is one of the goals, of course. But I tend to think more of "what would be the best settings for most users" (note that I said "best", not "least controversial", nor "easiest to adapt to"). Of course, this has to be balanced against "don't alienate existing users" (which is also spelled "preserve backward compatibility of the UI"). For the same kind of reason, Emacs-24 will change the way minor-modes react when called with a nil argument (in Emacs-23, it toggles the mode, in Emacs-24 it turns it ON unconditionally). In this case, this doesn't change the UI (when called interactively, the arg is never nil), but for some users, their .emacs will end up doing something else than what they intended. This was deemed OK, because for many more users this change will make their .emacs DTRT (i.e. it will silently fix a lurking bug in their config), and it also makes it easier to add minor modes on hooks, without having to rely on the existence of a turn-on-foo-mode or the use of the more verbose (lambda () (foo-mode 1)). I know some people will complain. We always hear them a lot more than those who benefit from such changes. > You also haven't acknowledged that Emacs gets used as a platform on which > other services are delivered, such as programming environments or mail > clients. Your response only touches upon the use of Emacs for personal text > editing. Imagine, for instance, that your favourite mail client happened to > use `next-line' instead of `forward-line' somewhere in handling the mail > headers. The byte-compiler flags this, luckily. > It could damage the mail folders irretrievably over a period of time > before it ever gets noticed. Is that kind of trouble an appropriate > price to pay for the "convenience" you talk about? Every Emacs release brings in incompatibilities for Elisp code, many of which aren't ever flagged by the byte-compiler. So this particular `next-line' change for Elisp code is but one of many other such problems, and experience has shown it was not particularly serious. Stefan