Re: Default of jit-lock-stealth-time

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: address@hidden
> From: David Kastrup <address@hidden>
> Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 23:02:49 +0100
> >
> > One evidence I can offer is the number of discussions between
> > developers where different people tried many times to convince
> > Richard to turn font-lock on by default.
> 
> Where would have been the point in having it turned on by default if
> "a large majority of users" would turn it on manually, anyway?

To lower the flood of questions posted by newbies asking why they see
no syntax highlight, _before_ they turn it on.

> I see this rather as evidence that people did _not_ turn it on by
> default, and that Emacs' popularity suffered because of that.

Popularity did suffer, but because newbies couldn't imagine Emacs
didn't have syntax highlight.  As soon as they learned Emacs did have
it, they turned it on.