Re: Suggestion: Mapping of M-g should be goto-line

[Alan Shutko]

Danilo Segan <address@hidden> writes:

> How could the first approach using goto-line be "more user friendly"
> than the latter?  If that's your point, I strongly disagree.  And no,
> I'm not talking only about me, I'm talking about everyone using a
> terminal outside Emacs for such tasks.

emacsclient requires lots of keystrokes.  Even if you alias it, it
requires an open terminal on the same machine you're running Emacs. 

One common use case I have is reading (often really large) java log
files on another machine and checking on java exceptions.  next-error
won't work for those even if I transfer the log file and force it
into compilation-mode.  There is some code which will parse java
exceptions and jump similar to next-error, but I'd still have to
transfer the file, which I don't want to do (since it is big, remote,
and has lines appended to it while I'm looking at it).

Or, getting a backtrace from a web app in the browser.  I could cut
and paste it all into a buffer and fake it up appropriately, or I
could just use goto-line.

Or, another use-case: getting line numbers from a java debugger
running in a graphical window.  Sure, I could pop to a console
(bringing a third application into the mix) and type "emacsclient -n
+2323 LongDirectoryHeirarchy/Whatever.java", or I could flip to
Emacs, load it using file-cache to find the file, and quickly go to
the file.

Or, someone calls me saying "I'm having trouble understanding line
124 of this file, could you explain it?

Emacs's other features are not the solution to these issues.  I've
been using Emacs for about 10 years now and have a pretty fair handle
on what it does, and have coded things to make things easier, and
really, sometimes goto-line is the simplest answer.

-- 
Alan Shutko <address@hidden> - I am the rocks.
Man invented Alcohol. God invented Grass. Who do you trust?