The preferred way of configuring emacs

[deja8501]

Let's start with an example.

I don't like the way scroll-up and scroll-down works when the point is
near to the end or the beginning of the buffer. The default behavior of
emacs is to signal an error and not move the point. I adviced the scroll
functions to move the point to the first or last character of the buffer
respectively if they signal an error.

That's the way I like it.

I've been thinking about lately the preferred way of configuring emacs.
If the behavior described above is suitable for me then should I suggest
the emacs maintainers to add an option to scroll-up/down so that I can
use emacs the way I want simply by setting an option? Or the mere fact
that emacs can be configured to work like this is enough and there is no
need for a user option.

Advantage of a user option: the behavior can be tuned easily. A less
advanced user might not be able to redefine or advice scroll-up/down,
but he or she is probably able to set the value of a variable.

Disadvantage: If the wishes of every user are added to emacs as an
option, the size of emacs gets bigger and bigger, and we know that it is
quite big already.

What do you think? If one comes up with an idea which might be useful
for others, shall he submit a feature request or shall he publish his
configuration on one of the emacs newsgroups?


Tom


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