Re: On language-dependent defaults for character-folding

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> Drew Adams <address@hidden> writes:

> What seems clear to me for Emacs 25.1 is that the feature should be included
> AND that it should be simple to both (1) customize the default behavior for
> a given user (i.e., what behavior search starts with, a la
> `case-fold-search') and (2) toggle the behavior on the fly, during Isearch.

I think Drew has summarized perfectly what I would like to see happen. In
addition, I'd add one more item: Once 25.1 is released, I (or another) will
write a blog article publicizing this feature and touting its benefits, in
order to encourage people to try it out and discover how useful it can be.

However, making it a default in 25.1 is something I am simply not comfortable
doing, giving the diversity of opinion on this list, plus my own misgivings
about so new (and nuanced) a feature. Yes, the visual equality of á and á is a
powerful argument, but as Drew said, there will be well-advertised ways to
both enable this feature, and to toggle it while searching. Users will not
lose any capacity by our decision, they will simply not experience it as a
default out of the box.

And so, my decision is that this feature will be off by default in the 25.1
release, with the genuine hope that it can be made solid enough to become a
default in a future release. It needn't even wait until 26.1, if we receive
enough positive feedback.

My thanks to everyone for the extensive and conscientious debate, and to Eli
for sticking to his guns. I am hopeful we will reach general consensus over
time, and that this feature will come to be recognized as a compelling aspect
of the Emacs feature set. Until that day, please forgive me my reservations;
I'm just not there yet in wanting this to become a default behavior.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2

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