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kill-region in 24.4 shouldn't require BEG and END


From: Kelly Dean
Subject: kill-region in 24.4 shouldn't require BEG and END
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 06:55:38 +0000

If the REGION argument is non-nil, then BEG and END shouldn't be required, 
since they're unused (except in one place where they aren't needed). So the test
⌜unless (and beg end)⌝
in kill-region should be
⌜unless (or region (and beg end))⌝
and the docstring should point out that if REGION is non-nil, then BEG and END 
are unused and might as well be nil.

The one place in kill-region where BEG and END are unnecessarily used if REGION 
is non-nil is the line
⌜(kill-append string (< end beg))⌝
which should be something like
⌜(kill-append string (if region
                        (< (point) (mark))
                       (< end beg)))⌝
and similarly for copy-region-as-kill.

Without these changes, both kill-region and its docstring are confusing.

Also, it would be clearer to have different names for the region between the 
cursor (er. point) and mark vs. a region between two specified positions; maybe 
call the latter a ‟range”, and have a cut-range function that takes BEG and END 
and have a cut-region function that takes no arguments, have both call 
kill-region, rename the latter to ‟cut-range-or-region”, and provide 
‟kill-region” as an alias to the latter and mark it as deprecated, but I guess 
we'd have to wait 20 years before that alias could be safely removed. To go 
along with that, rename the kill-ring to ‟clip-ring” (not ‟cut-ring” since it 
holds not just cut things, but also copied things) to be memorable as a ring of 
clippings since everybody knows what a clipboard is, and rename all the 
associated functions.
But Emacs just wouldn't be the same if it didn't let us kill things anymore. 
Maybe the traditional, weaponized version is better after all.



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