Re: Adding refactoring capabilities to Emacs

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   (Sorry, for resurrecting this subthread, but...)

   Should we make diff-mode always start in read-only-mode? It's currently 
   inconsistent: read-only in some cases (vc-diff) and writable in others 
   (visiting a patch file on disk).

Does it need to be consitent?  These are two I would think entierly
different use cases of diff-mode... and warrent different behaviour.

If you have a diff on file, you are most probobly going to apply it,
and also probobly going to remove a hunk or two or edit the diff in
some manner.  (That this is "relatively rare" I disagree from my own
usage and experience).  Not to mention that visiting a file on disk,
that is read-write, and Emacs making it read-only would be very
strange.

With vc-diff (similar, diff-buffer-with-file) you are diffing whatever
you have against VC (or file), there is little point to edit via the
diff, and you'd more likley just save this to file or an email.  So in
those cases the buffer being read-only makes more sense.

   Whereas, I think, in both cases editing the diff itself is a relatively 
   rare operation. Most of the time, I visit a patch, press some key (such 
   as n or p), curse slightly, press 'undo', turn on read-only-mode, and 
   then continue with the real work.