Re: [Psgml-devel] Re: Key sequence C-c C-f C-e uses invalid prefix characters

[Stefan Monnier]

> Richard Stallman wrote:
> >     Dave Love wrote something earlier about including PSGML in the Emacs 
> >     distribution. I don't know the status of this. But it could either be 
> >     as a replacement of the current sgml-mode or in addition to it. 
> 
> Replacement. I've been advocating this ever since psgml reached stable
> *years* ago. sgml-mode alone is useless and vastly confusing for the
> beginner, as it precisely does *NOT* implement SGML editing, only the
> recognition of pointy brackets -- useful 15 years ago but not now!

Last I heard (and that was before Dave's patches were incorporated),
PSGML did not deal well at all with the situation where the DTD is
unknown, which happens to be the standard case for me.  This is
why I spent some time improving sgml-mode.
I believe that Dave's patches do bring PSGML to the point where it
is about as good as sgml-mode when editing text without DTD, so maybe
it is now good enough to replace sgml-mode.

> Please. In perpetuating sgml-mode we are making the Emacs distro look
> very silly.

Given the amount of complaint about PSGML "not indenting and not
highlighting" we have seen on gnu.emacs.help I'd say that the lack
of DTD-less support has been a problem for a long time now.
Yes, PSGML should be included in Emacs, and as soon as it truly
works as well (no matter how poor that is) as sgml-mode in
DTD-less settings, we can and should replace sgml-mode with PSGML.

But the DTD-less setting is very important.


        Stefan