bug#4748: 23.1; least recently used window - is it?

[Drew Adams]

Consider it a question rather than a bug, if you prefer.
 
Why shouldn't `get-lru-window' respect strictly what its name implies,
instead of having this exception that has *nothing* to do with recency
of usage?
 
  "If any full-width windows are present, it only considers these."
 
Actually, it's not clear whether that description from the Elisp
manual refers only to the behavior of function `get-lru-window' or to
the definition of "least recently used window" itself. I'm guessing
it's both. (What is "it" in the sentence quoted?)
 
So my question is really why the "least recently used window" isn't in
fact always the least recently used window?
 
It seems clear that code cannot depend on this lru concept behaving
according to the chronology of window access. To control which window
is the lru means you must consider not only window-access chronology
but whether there are full-width windows etc.
 
What I would really like to be able to is to _set_ the least recently
used window - however Emacs wants to define that. I would do that so
that code that then uses the least recently used window would use the
window I specified (by having set it as the least recently used). That
might even be the selected window in some cases.
 
Currently, it doesn't seem easy to predict or control which window is
used by things such as `pop-to-buffer' that try to use another window.
Being able to set the so-called lruw that such functions use would
make things a lot more straightforward.
 

In GNU Emacs 23.1.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2009-07-29 on SOFT-MJASON
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-gcc (4.4)'