Post Acg48LifeDIo1wTfPs by amszmidt@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by amszmidt@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AcfQ811eafVXgPduLo by eshel@emacs.ch
2023-12-10T12:17:27Z
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Bad NEWS, #EmacsWith a heavy heart, I want to share some thoughts about a recentdevelopment with Emacs that I found really disappointing :(https://eshelyaron.com/posts/2023-12-10-bad-news.html
(DIR) Post #AcfQ81tXMKbqNWqwL2 by louis@emacs.ch
2023-12-10T12:58:28Z
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@eshel @bthalpin @offset___cyan @ericsfraga I wonder why the maintainers disregard requests for backwards compatibility? I mean, that's what Emacs is all about. Are you sure you have exhausted all options to discuss this with the responsible maintainers? It seems strange to me that they accept such an annoying breaking change without good reason.However, maintaining your own fork seems to be an interesting take but it will for sure cost you a lot of effort to keep up. What do you think?
(DIR) Post #AcfQjXp1cL4K76dBEe by galdor@emacs.ch
2023-12-10T13:05:17Z
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@louis @eshel @bthalpin @offset___cyan @ericsfraga Apparently this new (annoying) behaviour will be controlled by register-use-preview.It is highly frustrating to see maintainers accept this kind of change to the default behavior of Emacs, especially for such an important feature (I use registers all the time and shortcuts are ingrained in my muscle memory).As for the "good reason":> Because the original discussion of these changes, between two people who were interested and involved, indicated that the new behavior makes much more sense than the old one. Now, that others chimed in with the opposite views, we are still discussing what should be the behavior, and once that is concluded, we can talk about the defaults.Not much to add, and given the toxicity of emacs-devel I'm not touching this discussion with a 10 foot pole.
(DIR) Post #AcfR96S7zxX4l56m6C by ericsfraga@fediscience.org
2023-12-10T13:09:54Z
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@galdor @offset___cyan @bthalpin @eshel @louis emacs-devel may have quite a few arguments but I would hesitate to call it toxic by any stretch of the imagination. This issue was raised by concerned users on Thursday and has already been resolved, hopefully to the satisfaction of all. I re-iterate that this is all taking place on the master branch of Emacs, not one of the release branches, and this kind of change and refinement is to be expected.
(DIR) Post #AcfVoOKqocy7uTeDtg by eshel@emacs.ch
2023-12-10T14:02:13Z
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@louis @ericsfraga @offset___cyan @bthalpinI think I went far and beyond on this matter, I studied the code andproposed an alternative implementation in my attempt to help out. Icould probably do or discuss even more, and perhaps I will in thefuture, but for now I've exhausted the energy I had for doing that.Regarding the costs of maintaining a fork, you're right and thatcertainly requires more work than simply pulling from upstream, butcurrently I don't feel like that's a good choice for me either.
(DIR) Post #Acg08M1q6AU9AlBrZQ by bthalpin@mastodon.social
2023-12-10T12:50:30Z
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@eshel I use registers to a limited extent and have been annoyed by this change. Arguments for backward compatibility are strong, and usually carry weight for the #Emacs community
(DIR) Post #Acg08NH7SqIn2RLa1g by amszmidt@mastodon.social
2023-12-10T12:56:42Z
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@bthalpin @eshel I think it is fair to say that "article" is mostly hyperbole, and frankly quite unfair to the maintainers.
(DIR) Post #Acg48KqmsYCVKpGdQe by sqrtminusone@emacs.ch
2023-12-10T18:09:27Z
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@eshel I'd just make a package or add a few lines to the config that revert the change.I feel like #emacs defaults are kinda insane anyway, and it doesn't matter because you're supposed to change what you don't like.
(DIR) Post #Acg48LifeDIo1wTfPs by amszmidt@mastodon.social
2023-12-10T18:27:00Z
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@sqrtminusone @eshel That is absolutely not what the case should be. Emacs has perfectly sensible defaults, for the most part. You might not like them, but that is sorta like not liking apples, and preferring pears.I'm curious which defaults you find most insane though?
(DIR) Post #Acg48MRgwpJaHZXcae by amszmidt@mastodon.social
2023-12-10T18:31:19Z
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@sqrtminusone @eshel ... might clarify that I'm not talking about GNU Emacs specifically, but rather Emacs -- older Emacs you would not reconfigure to the same extent as you do GNU Emacs. You might twiddle something here or there, but the overall editor was the default one.
(DIR) Post #Acg48N7WRIm8NJ71n6 by sqrtminusone@emacs.ch
2023-12-10T19:04:10Z
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@amszmidt @eshel I mean, if you've been using Emacs for decades (and even remember pre-GNU Emacsen), we're in different leagues, sort of.I generally dislike long key sequences involving modifier keys, like C-x C-k C-e... which can be prefixed with C-u. I find bindings like C-x 0 or C-x 4 0 not very intuitive. Do these numbers mean anything? :D I'm aware that one can get used to any of these, of course.But I came to Emacs as a Vim user a few years ago, so I was using evil-mode from the day one. If I didn't like something, I changed it. So, my config is ridiculously large, with lots of custom (evil) keybindings, advice functions, etc. I'm almost helpless with vanilla emacs, but it works for me, and I'm content.
(DIR) Post #Acg48NfYOlzu4r2Cps by amszmidt@mastodon.social
2023-12-10T19:10:56Z
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@sqrtminusone @eshel The addition of the very-very long C-x .. bindings is a relatively new fashion, and one I dislike. It was generally C-x <letter>, or C-x C-<letter> -- and not much longer than that. For example, the register commands where C-x g (get register), C-x x (copy to register), C-x s (save position), and C-x j (jump-to-register). C-x 0 is simple, 0 windows -- i.e. kill it, you could consider 1 as ~0 .. and "kill the other one".
(DIR) Post #Acg48PSriv2Je576Ku by amszmidt@mastodon.social
2023-12-10T19:13:13Z
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@sqrtminusone @eshel What happened, one might blame on keyboards -- the overloading of C-x v (version control, used to be visit file ..), C-x p (project mode ...) might be the lack of good keys for the purpose. There is no Super, or Hyper key any more, or specialised keys for those things where those would be better suited for.
(DIR) Post #Acg48RVQ8OGhyaKAb2 by amszmidt@mastodon.social
2023-12-10T19:36:48Z
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@sqrtminusone @eshel C-x 1 can also be considered, "just one window". I looked in the ZMacs code, and you really only have C-x <letter> and C-x C-<letter> -- nothing longer. The they tend to have "pairs", like C-% and M-% .. for replacing strings, or like C-<shift>-d and M-<shift>-d related to docstrings.
(DIR) Post #Acg48TKVLwj1dJETrM by amszmidt@mastodon.social
2023-12-10T19:37:41Z
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@sqrtminusone @eshel Following a scheme of : C- for short things, M- for slightly longer things, C-M- for very long things (char, word, sentence ...)
(DIR) Post #Acg48UzJBixUm9Ka6C by amszmidt@mastodon.social
2023-12-10T19:43:19Z
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@sqrtminusone @eshel And probably why new users contributing to Emacs think that "registers" are a complicated, advanced features, since it was demoted from a very easy binding (C-x j / C-x s) to something annoying to input.
(DIR) Post #Acgh6PAfjwGiMudfJw by viz@emacs.ch
2023-12-11T03:43:25Z
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@louis @eshel @bthalpin @offset___cyan @ericsfraga the maintainers are hearing both sides of the argument and trying to come with a compromise since Theirry's patch fixes other issues with the register system too. The maintainers need more time, this article is just someone being overly dramatic and not patient.