Re: Make all tree-sitter modes optional

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 17/01/2023 20:40, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2023 20:21:18 +0200
> > Cc: casouri@gmail.com, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, larsi@gnus.org,
> >   theo@thornhill.no, jostein@secure.kjonigsen.net, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > From: Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>
> >
> > +The new modes based on tree-sitter are for now entirely optional, and
> > +you must turn them on manually, or load them in your init file, or
> > +customize 'auto-mode-alist' to turn them on automatically for certain
> > +files.
> >
> > I thought there would be something more in the docs, given that the new
> > behavior is unusual.
>
> What do you suggest to add?

The design doesn't really make sense to me, so it would be hard for me 
to explain it to a user. So no proposed docs from me, sorry.

> > But I see you are referring to auto-mode-alist here, modifying which
> > will still be necessary for js-ts-mode and python-ts-mode. Which will
> > touch a lot of users, possibly even the majority of tree-sitter
> > enthusiasts, given that JS and Python are some of the most popular
> > languages these days.
> >
> > And yet you rejected my counter-proposal claiming (if I got your
> > position right) that modying auto-mode-alist is difficult/annoying/etc
> > for an average user. To quote:
> >
> >         - Customizing auto-mode-alist is not the easiest task, it
> >           requires good knowledge of Emacs regexps and alists.  So
> >           asking anyone who wants to try using the tree-sitter modes to
> >           do that is not the best idea from the POV of user-friendliness.
> >
> > So which is it?
>
> Both.  I mention auto-mode-alist as the last alternative, for those
> who are fine with going that way.  It isn't black-and-white.

But it's either that, or "turn them on manually", right? That would also 
work with my proposal.

> > To "try out" tree-sitter modes, the users can 'M-x js-ts-mode' or etc
> > either way. But to switch to the said mode, they will need to deal with
> > auto-mode-alist, again, without any alternative.
>
> That's specific to js-ts-mode (and one other, I think) because they
> share the .el file with a non-tree-sitter mode.  If there's a
> reasonable way to give them separate files, things would be easier.

Right. If they were in separate files, then we could write the doc with 
suggestions to merely violate the standard recommendation of avoiding 
'require' in the init script.

> But this is not a documentation issue, first and foremost.

Inconsistencies in design often turn up as documentation issues later.