Re: table.el

[Richard Stallman]

    Actually I think that's one reason why the emacs C code [for reading
    buffer names] uses the `Prompt: (default foo) ' style, because it's
    easier to simply append '(default foo)' to an existing prompt than it is
    to parse the prompt and put the `(default foo)' in the "right place".

Yes, that was the reason.  I remember it now.

I think format 2 looks nicer.  But if we want to use that format
generally, we have to find a way to implement it in the functions that
add a default to a user-supplied prompt.  This way needs to be clean,
reliable, and upward-compatible.  We can't change all the calls
to those minibuffer functions.