Re: delete-selection-mode as default (WAS: Some developement questions)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Joost Kremers <address@hidden>
> Cc: Noam Postavsky <address@hidden>, address@hidden, address@hidden, 
> address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden
> Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2018 22:39:54 +0200
> 
> what `delete-selection-mode` does is standard behaviour in most
> software out there and most new users will take it for granted

The _only_ problem I personally have with delete-selection-mode is
that it also replaces the region created by the likes of "C-x C-x",
something that "most software out there" does not and cannot do.  If
we were to change delete-selection-mode to replace only highlighted
text created by mouse selections or by shift-selections, I think we
could then enable it by default without much resistance, because
typing a character or DEL after explicitly selecting text is many
orders of magnitude less probable to be a mistake than when we make
the region active by other means.

I suspect that making the above happen would need to introduce a
special kind of region, though.  But if we want to present a UI and
provide a UX similar to other editors, I don't see any other way.  I
think the conclusion from the transient-mark-mode experiment is that
it is not up to the job we hoped it will do, due to conflicting
requirements that cannot be reconciled by reasonably reliable
heuristics.  The traditional Emacs region cannot support
delete-selection-mode and its traditional uses at the same time.