words, symbols and syntax-tables

[Stefan Monnier]

Why on earth is there such a thing as a "w" syntax-class ?
It seems the distinction between "w" and "_" is only used for
interactive `forward-word' operations and that in such cases
the definition of what is a "word" does not really depend on
the major-mode but is instead pretty much "constant".

I.e. why not eliminate the "w" syntax-class and implement forward-word
using something else than the buffer's syntax-table (like a global
"word-char-table" similar to the case-tables) ?

Obviously, this would break lots of code in various ways, but
in hindsight, was it a good decision to implement word-operations
using syntax-tables (and more specifically the "w" syntax-class) ?


        Stefan