RE: delete-selection-mode

[Drew Adams]

> From: Stefan Monnier
> If the fact that the region is active at that point "is right"
> (i.e. you indeed intended to highlight that region), then 
> deleting it is probably the right thing to do.
> 
> But if the region is active by accident (e.g. the fact that it's
> highlighted is something you grudgingly live with since t-m-m was made
> the default), then you may get annoyed that merely inserting a char at
> point ends up deleting all the text that happened to be highlighted.
> 
> I think delete-selection-mode makes sense, FWIW, but I can 
> also see that it might annoy some users, although these should
> pretty much only be the users who don't like t-m-m but don't hate
> it enough to go through the trouble of turning it off.

Good summary, IMO.

> From: Juri Linkov
> There is a simple principle wrt t-t-m: when the region is active then
> keys change their usual meaning.  With delete-selection-mode this
> includes <delete> and other self-inserting keys in addition to
> existing keys that already have a special meaning in t-m-m.

Another good summary.


If a user doesn't want the advantages and disadvantages of an active region, and
just wants to use the mark and the region as they were before the concept of an
active region, then s?he might as well turn off t-m-mode.

If a user wants an active region (with of course a way to deactivate it), then
d-s-mode makes the most sense. There is not a lot of use for an active region
without the behavior of auto-replace provided by d-s-mode. IMO.