[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete
From: |
Suvayu Ali |
Subject: |
Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete |
Date: |
Mon, 3 Oct 2011 09:33:34 +0200 |
On Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:42:50 -0400
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> * Are you in favor of this change?
>
Yes.
> * Are you opposed to this change?
>
No.
> * How strongly do you feel about the matter?
>
Strongly. So much so, that I had advised delete to behave like this when
I was using Emacs 23. I am not an expert lisp programmer, so it was a
bit buggy. When I discovered this feature in Emacs 24 I was happy to let
go of my customisation.
FWIW, if this is customisable by a variable expert users opposing this
change can easily revert back to the old behaviour but new users find
this very confusing (at least in my experience from ~3 yrs back when I
adopted Emacs).
> We don't want to just "count votes" -- we want to understand
> how this affects users. So if you care about the issue,
> please tell us how the change affects your editing.
>
> * What are the cases where you find it helps?
>
Often I want to delete large chunks of text and don't want it to
"pollute" my kill ring. This option lets me do that very easily. In my
experience I find I use this more often when I am writing plain text
rather than programming. IMO, with the advent of more such modes in
Emacs where you edit large amounts of plain text (and not source code)
makes this a very useful feature for me (e.g. message-mode, org-mode,
..). I found default behaviour (like the old behaviour) can be a hurdle
when introducing other friends to Emacs (I was trying to introduce my
non techie friends to org-mode and LaTeX).
> * What are the cases where you find it hurts?
>
As I mentioned above, I find it less useful while programming but I
wouldn't say that it hurts.
> * What is your level of Emacs experience?
>
I have been using Emacs for over 3 yrs now. I am a PhD student and my
Emacs use involves a lot of programming (C/C++, python, shell scripts
for my studies and lisp as hobby), writing notes, draft articles for
publications (with org-mode and LaTeX). I am a relatively experienced
user of Emacs (of course not compared to the list members, but in
comparison to my colleagues at the University). On a more fun note, I am
aware of rectangle commands. ;)
> A further change in the same area has been suggested: when there is an
> active region, a self-inserting character would delete the region
> before the character is inserted by default.
>
> * What would you think of this further change?
>
I am not sure about this, but this brings default Emacs behaviour close
to other modern text editors. If this is a configurable option, I don't
see any harm.
> Please send your responses to emacs-delete-poll@gnu.org.
>
>
Thank you for asking the user's opinion!
--
Suvayu
Open source is the future. It sets us free.
Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete,
Suvayu Ali <=
- "like other editors" [was: Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete], ken, 2011/10/03
- Re: "like other editors" [was: Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete], Suvayu Ali, 2011/10/03
- Re: "like other editors" [was: Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete], ken, 2011/10/03
- Re: "like other editors" [, Richard Riley, 2011/10/03
- Re: "like other editors" [, ken, 2011/10/03
Re: "like other editors" [was: Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete], Andreas Röhler, 2011/10/03
Re: "like other editors" [, Richard Riley, 2011/10/03
Re: "like other editors" [, Richard Riley, 2011/10/03