Re: Should undefined behavior be encouraged in Emacs?

[ken manheimer]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Barry Warsaw <address@hidden> wrote:

On Oct 06, 2011, at 10:12 PM, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:

>Andreas Röhler <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> for me transient-mark-mode in connection with a mark set is enough.
>
>Oh, are we having this discussion again?
>
>I, like (I'm assuming) all other oldey-timey Emacs users :-), disabled
>`transient-mark-mode' the first chance I got.  And the reason for that
>is that `C-x C-x' activates the region, which makes it impossible to use
>that command to jump around in buffers.  Which I do constantly.
>
>If that rather odd overloading of the `C-x C-x' command went away, I
>might start using `transient-mark-mode'.

i'm jumping in the discussion to say a bit more about namedmarks.el, which barry mentioned, but while i'm here.  i'm an old timer that leaves transient mark mode active, and likes it - but i think it's tolerable because i customized the 'region' face to be only slightly different than the background, so it's barely noticeable.  (i set the region background to darkslategray, which blends in almost but not quite completely with the black background which i have as the default for my emacs frames.)

barry:

 

[...]

One quick note about C-x C-x and C-space.  For several decades now I've used Ken Manheimer's most awesome namedmarks code[1].  With no C-u, these work just like their default cousins (I think, it's been a long time), but with an argument, they allow you to name locations in the buffer.  E.g.

C-u C-space
-> Set named mark:
here RET
(move somewhere far away)
C-u C-x C-x
-> Goto mark named (default here)
RET

jumps you back to the mark named 'here'.  Of course, you can have any number of named marks, and both prompts support completion.  It's a testament to its elegant simplicity that I don't think this code has been touched in 20 years and still works beautifully.  It's a great addition to the core UI, IMO.  Notably, going to a named mark does *not* activate the region, which I think makes perfect sense given that I'm often jumping around over several screen fulls.  I don't think I could function without namedmarks.

me, too! :-)  i've just now put a more legible - but essentially unchanged - copy of namedmarks.el on my current site, and would love to see it incorporated in emacs.  the view in that location is more usable than the old location which barry mentions (and i put a redirect there - a bit of overdue tidying...)

ken

-Barry

[1] My local copy is (C) 1991 FSF, which looks pretty close to
http://wiki.zope.org/klm/namedmarks.el