Re: delete-selection-mode

[David Kastrup]

Juri Linkov <address@hidden> writes:

>>> delete-selection-mode would be the default too, that's what everything
>>> on the desktop does...
>
> I agree with Richard that the primary concern is doing what is useful
> for newcomers.  One of the most frequent questions they ask is how to do
> what most other editors do - to replace selected text with a typed
> character or with yanked text, and to delete the region by typing <delete>
> without copying it to the kill-ring.
>
> What they are asking for is delete-selection-mode,
> but they can't find it in the documentation because
> the feature name says nothing to beginners, and
> they expect to take this functionality for granted.
>
> Some recent examples of such problems:
>
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help/60992
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help/45623
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help/42402
>
> Is that reason enough to enable delete-selection-mode by default?

Since it interferes with Emacs-typical editing command sequences, my
vote is "no".

The question you appear concerned with is more "how can we make
beginners shut up" rather than "how can we make beginners more
productive with Emacs".

Perhaps we should offer a submenu in "Help" about "Judicious differences
to other editors", with rationales, an introducting section saying "Some
default behaviors we considered useful enough to make them different
from other editors, so we recommend that you try to get acquainted with
the suggested mode of operation before deciding against it", maybe even
with clickable links to customize-variable where you can turn some
feature like delete-selection-mode on (and off again!).

We could even go as far as to mark some customizable variables as
"voteable" and have a mechanism where you can send all of your personal
voteable settings to address@hidden

-- 
David Kastrup