Re: Emacs undo behavior frustrating for new users. (WAS: delete-selection-mode as default)

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

I had to hold my nose about the frequent use of sinular "they" in
what your friend sent, but it is very interesting.

I have nothing in principle against switching to an Undo/Redo system.
But there is an obstacle: finding a key for the Redo command.

However, I think this aspect of the behavior is bad:

  > > For example, in MS Word, if a user performs actions A, B, C, and D,
  > > and then undoes the last two actions, [perse] will be returned to a
  > > state in which only A and B have been performed.

A good Undo/Redo system should save the states C and D somewhere and
offer SOME way to get back to them.

  > > MS Word and other programs therefore define two kinds of actions:
  > > those that affect the contents of the text, ... and those that do not 
affect the
  > > contents of the text, leaving the action history unaffected.

This might be feasible to implement as an option.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)