Re: Clarification about auto-revert-mode and inotify

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 07:36:26 +0200
> From: Per Starbäck <address@hidden>
> 
> When I first tested auto-revert-mode I assumed it was broken since
> nothing happened.  The original poster wasn't sure if the current
> behaviour was a bug or not. Emacs is not fulfilling user
> expectations for an auto revert mode.

I could agree with that (cannot really argue with expectations of
others, nor do I think we should), but if so, this situation exists
for a long time, because this default didn't change since 1997.  Maybe
it's time to change it, but that's a different discussion.

This thread is about the change in the latest Emacs, which adds
support for file notifications, and whether we should use that to make
"immediate" the default.  The relation to the time interval used to
check for buffers that need to be auto-reverted is only tangential,
mainly because I suggested to use that as the way to make the reaction
time shorter.

> No real reason? I have instead hard to think of a reason why anyone
> would like a five second delay for anything you'd use auto revert
> mode for. I can imagine that someone sometimes would like a minimum
> time between updates, if there's reason to see what happens, step by
> step, but have much harder to think of a reason why anyone would
> like such a long delay before the first update. I don't rule out
> that there might be such a reason in some rare case, but still, if
> not for performance issues, the default should clearly be
> "immediate" (by human standards) update.

I think we need to consider the broader picture here.  It is possible
that you have in mind a situation where only one buffer, or a small
number of buffers, are under auto-revert.  But what if there are
dozens of them?  And what about remote files, whose access is
expensive/slow?

So I'm not sure the decision is so clear here.  However, if you are
arguing for reducing the default time interval, I'm not opposed to
that.  All I said initially was that this customizable option is IMO
enough to give users "immediate" reverts if they want that.