Re: delete-selection-mode

[Miles Bader]

Lennart Borgman <address@hidden> writes:
>> Having multiple "types" of selection that are
>> sorta-the-same-but-sorta-different is just going to make Emacs harder to
>> use for everybody, and harder to learn for beginners.
>
> Could you please be more specific? This is a bit too general to be
> understandable.
>
> If you for example mean that shift selection should go away then I
> disagree. If you mean that we should work towards getting selection
> working the same whenever possible then I agree.

No, I don't think shift-selection should go away.  It's a fine feature,
helps interoperability, and does not interfere with other Emacs
features.

Shift-selection _is_ inherently "special" in one way:  the region is
deactivated by certain actions, where a t-m-m region wouldn't be.
This is an inherent part of the shift-select interaction model, as
defined externally to Emacs, so it's necessary.  Given the way people
use shift-select, this does not seem a real problem (and there's obvious
visual feedback).

But other than that, shift-selection should be the same as t-m-m-style
selection as far as possible -- for instance, there should not be a
different set of commands available for "shift-selected" regions than
there are for regions created using traditional Emacs commands.

Actually, perhaps a good analogue would be the Emacs shift-select
implementation: it works _consistently_, and shift-selection can be
used with traditional Emacs movement commands (e.g., C-f) exactly the
same as with arrow-keys etc.  This helps people learn Emacs, because
they can gradually extend their command repertoire without
encountering jarring discontinuities in the way things work.  Someone
can learn Emacs-style movement keys while still using shift-selection,
or they can learn Emacs-style selection while still using arrow keys;
because there's no artificial linkage between the two, the learning
curve for traditional Emacs features becomes shallower.  There's no
"windows/mac-style-usage ghetto" in Emacs, and we shouldn't add one.

-Miles

-- 
Virtues, n. pl. Certain abstentions.