Re: `isearch-allow-scroll' - a misnomer and a bad design

[chad]

On Sep 17, 2011, at 7:52 PM, Richard Stallman wrote:

I think you've missed the crucial point about special Isearch commands.

With ordinary Emacs commands, if you don't know about them and you never
use them, they do not affect you.  Thus, there is no drawback to having
thousands of them.

However, when a control character is special in Isearch and you don't
know it, it will bite you.  You will type it while in an Isearch,
expecting it to have its usual meaning, and it will do something else
instead.

Do you think the usual meaning of C-u is ``exit the modal thing I'm 

doing now''?

The only time I've ever wanted to use C-u in isearch, it either preceded 

a command that would have exited isearch on its own, or I wanted to 

isearch for 6 `-'s, and I did not want it to exit isearch (and was confused 

when it did).

I don't see how a ``user expectation'' argument will ever support making 

C-u exit isearch.  If it's just a matter of a learned interaction, that's 

different.

I hope that helps,

*Chad