Re: new apropos feature in Emacs-22

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 09:45:11 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Alan Mackenzie <address@hidden>
> cc: address@hidden
> 
> On Sun, 6 Nov 2005, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> >> With the current code, ".emacs init file" will trigger a regexp
> >> search, whereas a newbie user unfamiliar with regexps might have
> >> expected the usual "at least two matches" behavior.
> 
> >A search engine quite frequently brings unexpected matches, based on its
> >convoluted heuristics.  Perhaps you are unfamiliar with that phenomenon
> >because you tend to use quoted phrases (which defeat those heuristics),
> >but it's normal for majority of users I've seen.
> 
> I don't think this is an attribute that Emacs should emulate.

We are not emulating any behavior, we just get hit by the same
problems as other search engines.

> Surely an Emacs user should be able to formulate a search criterion
> without having to jump through hoops of dwimmyness, without the
> uncertainty of not knowing how Emacs interprets his search string.  As
> David Kastrup points out, these uncertainties come up in search strings
> that will be used all the time, not occasional things that will occur
> once in a blue moon.

You are talking about something completely unrelated to what I was
saying.  While that's okay, why start it by quoting me?