Re: Default behaviour of RET.

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 22.10.2013 00:53, Drew Adams wrote:
> > Every IDE does that when the user presses RET.
>
> Not if you count Emacs as an IDE. ;-)

Only if you like splitting hairs.
Counting Emacs among points of reference for proposed change in Emacs 
behavior is useless.

> > The question is what would be the sane default.
>
> The default Emacs behavior for this is quite sane, and has been so
> for almost 40 years now.

It is sane because it is old? That's a bad argument.

> That it is not the same as the default behavior of this or that
> other application does not make the Emacs default behavior insane.

The Emacs default settings are considered outdated by many of its users 
(here's one tiny example: 
https://github.com/technomancy/better-defaults). So discussing changes 
in long-established behaviors can be useful.

> > You seem to be under impression that Eli is somehow new to using
> > Emacs.
>
> You seem to be fantasizing.  The "foreign vantage point" is an
> outside view, nothing more.

Yeah, and who's outside? One of the most prolific Emacs contributors?

> That is the argument, no?  "All the
> other guys are doing it another way."

Read it this way: "won't somebody think of the poor new users?"

And: "quite often standard behavior emerges for a reason".

> If you view Emacs `C-j' from the point of view of "every IDE" then
> I guess it is possible to find it "much less convenient" than `RET'.
> Otherwise, it is not.

It's ~twice as inconvenient, for obvious reasons.

> There is nothing new that makes the difference in convenience
> between `C-j' and `RET' any greater now than it has been at any
> point in the past.  Exactly the same difference: same mole hill.

It's not the greatest of problems one might find with Emacs, true.

> For Emacs, `C-j' has been considered convenient for this behavior
> for a very long time.  And I, for one, still find it convenient.
> It doesn't get much more convenient than `C-j'.  Circulez ; il
> n'y a rien a voir.

You still haven't answered why you want RET to be bound to `newline'.