Re: feature request: indicator of minibuffer-recursion depth

[Juanma Barranquero]

On 6/16/07, Drew Adams <address@hidden> wrote:

> "Most users" misses the mark. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy - if you make it 
> difficult for most users to change this, they won't. Most users will limit their changes 
> to whatever you have facilitated changing.

When did Emacs turn into something where every single little
featurette had to be configurable with *customize*? Because I
obviously didn't say that you *shouldn't* be able to change the
minibuffer-depth-indicator. Even in the most customize-friendly
packages, often there are defcustoms and there are defvars (and not
only for internal use).

A few years ago, while discussing the help argument highlighting
support, Richard said:

"To say that a user can customize something does not necessarily mean
introducing a defcustom to customize it.  That is one of many
customization mechanisms in Emacs. Another customization mechanism is
to redefine a function.

Some customizations are natural to do in that way, and some are
important enough to be worth installing a defcustom for.  But we
should refuse to fall into thinking automatically "add a defcustom"
whenever we think something might want to be changed by some users.

Many of those things are definitely not worth adding a defcustom for."

That's exactly what I feel about this feature.

> If you require a password that only you know, for instance,
> then "most users" is limited to (at most) you.

Strawman.

> Regardless of the calculation of "most users", you think wrong
> for at least one user - me.

Only if "most" doesn't mean what I think it means in English...

> The first thing I did after getting Miles's code was to add a
> defface and a defcustom to it.

Judging by the prodigious amount of *+.el packages you produce, I tend
to think this is the first thing you do with everyone's code... (I'm
joking here, please don't take it personally.)

> Call me interested in "tiny features" that "most users" don't care about.

Yes.

> I call someone who thinks that most users don't care about
> things like this naive - or uninterested in most users.

Strawman again. "Things like this" suddenly includes a lot of
customizations that I'm *not* *speaking* *about*. And I didn't propose
making the thing non-customizable; only that the user who wants to do
it takes the effort to use a little lisp. That's what .emacs was for,
I thought.

> Have you seen the use of cell-phone customizing gadgets in, say,
> Seoul or Bangkok?  Think users don't care much about
> personalizing the appearance of the things they use? Think again.

Please, Drew, this is starting to get old. Did I *ever* say that
"users don't care much about personalizing the appearance of the
things they use"? Just *once*? [If you answer this message, don't skip
this question; I'm really interested in the answer.]

> It's not all silly. But people are passionate even about
> preferences that others think of as perfectly silly. (Did I
> mention religious preferences? Oops...)

Don't you thing that's a little over the top? Suddenly I'm
ridiculizing people's religious beliefs?

> Arbitrarily? No. Judiciously.

Ah. So suddenly what you do want to customize is judicious, and what
I'd like is not.

> That's no more general than doing nothing - you might as well just provide the original 
> source code, to "be *really* general". Arbitrary generality is not the aim, in 
> any case. Ease of use for the target user audience is the aim.

And you're the target audience. People who can use customize and
change the color is the target audience. People who knows how to
program, or that is not afraid of adding one line of lisp code to
their .emacs is now not the target audience.

> Imagine how much more difference in point of view there must be in the wider 
> user population! This tiny feature is a good litmus test in user friendliness, 
> IMO.

Please.

> And this is something that is _not_ inherently difficult to change. This is a 
> _trivial_ change for users, provided you don't make it unnecessarily hard to 
> change - for most users. Losers indeed.

Please, don't hesitate to write the defcustom that allows the
customizations you want, and *also* the ones I want (including the
ability to run a function). I swear I won't be opposed to it. You
think it should be customizable, you do the effort.

            Juanma