Re: windows-1251 language environment

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>]

> Currently, a user must define his own language environment
> from scratch.  But, usually what they want is to prefer the
> diffent default input method, prefer the different coding
> system than the existing one.  In such a case, what he have
> to do is, currently, see source code of
> lisp/language/XXX.el, copy

>    (set-language-info-alist ....)

> into his .emacs, and modify some part of it.  If we allow
> inheritance, he can do something like:

> (define-language-environment Japanese-utf-8
>   '((inherit . "Japanese")
>     (coding-sytem utf-8 iso-2022-jp euc-jp)))

I've never seen anyone do that.  Instead, people do:

   (set-language-environment "foo")
   (prefer-coding-system 'bar)
   (setq default-input-method "baz")

That doesn't look particularly bad to me, except for the fact that
some things are set via `setq' others via `set-foo-bar', etc...
And of course the fact that it can only be done in elisp but
not in `custom'.

> Yes, but in the above buffer, it seems that "inherit" and
> "copy" button is helpful.  For instance, clicking "inherit"
> and selecting LANG will show the default values for each
> slots.  Clicking "copy" and selecting LANG fills all slots
> by values of LANG.

I don't think users who are unable to use elisp will be able to make any
use of the subtle distinction between `inherit' and `copy'.  I think only
`inherit' makes sense in a user-interface.


        Stefan