Re: magic-mode-alist gets in the way

[Richard Stallman]

    Perhaps it would easier if there were only one "list" --
    auto-mode-alist -- and a way for an entry to specify a "file contents
    regexp" instead of a file-name matching regexp.

This would not give good results, because the idea is that
ALL the regexps that match the contents should be tested before
all those that match the file name.  To keep that working
using just one list, people would have to be super-careful
about the order of the list.