Re: C-x C-q more useful as toggle-read-only

[Klaus Berndl]

On 24 Oct 2000, Michael John Downes wrote:

>  Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:
>  
> > With all due respect, this scenario sounds so convoluted that I'd be
> > surprised if many users have to deal with it.
>  
>  My mail was intended to provide anecdotal support for the guy who
>  started this thread. All I'm saying is "Yes, I had trouble with C-x C-q
>  too." If he and I are the only ones who have managed to trip over their
>  own feet in this area, I agree there is no need to change Emacs. It
>  caused trouble often enough for me that I changed the key binding, but
>  that's probably just because I use Emacs a lot, not because the
>  troublesome combination of circumstances is easily arrived at.
>  
> > For starters, I don't understand why do you use find-file-read-only
> > for finding a file that can be found using other methods.  You could,
> > for example, use "find -anewer" or some such.  Emacs offers desktop.el
> > that would avoid the necessity of remembering what file did you edit,
> > and recentf.el which remembers a few files you used lately.  You could
> > use C-x C-f, since any inadvertent changes can be easily undone with
> > C-x u or M-x revert-buffer.
>

One of the great advantages of Emacs is, that there are in most cases many
ways to reach a goal. Michaels scenario maybe seems a little bit constructed
or at least seldom occuring for Emacs users, but why not. It´s way to go (IMHO
not really worse compared with the ways Eli suggest).
Why not making *vc-toggle-read-only* more intelligent, so a scenario like
Michaels works too. This should be very easy. I have posted a first try to do
this and the really great clearcase.el goes the same way.

I really can´t see any disadvantage in making a function better.

>  
>  For someone who has a pattern of usage such that C-x C-q is usually run
>  on version-controlled files, accidentally trying to use it for checking
>  in/out a non-vc file is completely harmless. Nothing really changes. For
>  someone with a reverse pattern of usage, however, if Emacs guesses
>  wrongly about what they intended to do, the results can be rather
>  drastic, confusing, and inconvenient to undo. That is why I think it is
>  a mistake to overload those two operations onto a single keystroke.

No, i don´t agree. I´m using this automatic (not the original one, but the
enhanced one!) very often and i want never miss it. IMHO the overloading is no
mistake if the overloading has been done right. The current version of
*vc-toggle-read-only* has a little lack but this could be easy corrected.

Klaus

-- 
Klaus Berndl                    mailto: klaus.berndl@sdm.de
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