Re: position on changing defaults?

[Richard Stallman]

ibuffer's UI was never subjected to the scrutiny appropriate for
changes in standard Emacs interfaces.  Someone said he wanted to
install it as a powerful optional alternative, and since (from the
description) it did seem powerful, I said ok without paying much
attention.  I never tried using it, and I didn't try to learn
just what it did.

As an optional alternative, it did not need any more scrutiny than
that.  Some people use it and like it, and it can't bother anyone
else.

Whenever people wanted to enhance ibuffer, I didn't really look at
what was being proposed.  If the people who used ibuffer were happy
with the enhancements, that was good enough.  I wasn't one of them,
and I was busy.

A proposal to change the way the buffer list works by default is
another matter.  Each detail of that should receive careful thought.
Just because ibuffer does X and Y and Z, that doesn't mean that if we
make X the default then we should make Y and Z the default too.  We
might want X with Y' instead of Y, and not Z at all.

*Buffer List* is described in the Emacs Manual.  We have no Texinfo
documentation for ibuffer.  Part of making any ibuffer features the
default would be writing them up for the manual.  Writing a clear
description may not be easy, and not everyone here has the skill to
write good documentation in English.  Having good text to put in the
manual should be a prerequisite for making it the default (if we want
to).

Trying to write a clear description of these features could a crucial
test of whether they would be a good default.  If the proposed new
documentation is harder to understand than the current documentation
of the current featrues, that suggests the change should not be mde.

Perhaps it would be good to adopt the general policy that proposals
for changes in parts of the Emacs UI that are documented in the Emacs
Manual should come with the corresponding change in the manual.