Re: Newbie: Interactive goto-line ?!

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
> From: Floyd Davidson <floyd@barrow.com>
> Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 07:29:29 -0900
> >>
> >> That is not a default binding for either GNU Emacs or XEmacs, so
> >> I'm not positive which function you have bound to it.
> >
> >Did you try "C-h c M-g M-g"?  In my Emacs it says
> >
> >   M-g M-g runs the command font-lock-fontify-block
> 
> Run Emacs with the -q option.  At least in the latest Emacs
> release (21.3.1) that won't be defined.  You can then do C-h b,
> mark the whole buffer, and pipe it through grep to find what
> exactly is defined.
> 
>   M-g d         facemenu-set-default
>   M-g b         facemenu-set-bold
>   M-g i         facemenu-set-italic
>   M-g l         facemenu-set-bold-italic
>   M-g u         facemenu-set-underline
>   M-g o         facemenu-set-faceq
> 
> If you then load the font-lock package, the following are added,
> 
>   M-g ESC       Prefix Command
>   M-g ESC g     font-lock-fontify-block

("M-g ESC g" == "M-g M-g")

I guess we mean different things when we say ``default binding''.  For
me, this includes the bindings defined by packages that aren't
preloaded, as opposed to user-defined bindings on his/her .emacs file.

And on top of that, I couldn't imagine that someone nowadays would use
Emacs without global-font-lock-mode turned on.  I guess I was wrong.

> >Yes, we considered this during development of Emacs 20.1 and rejected
> >this binding, since M-g is a prefix of commands that change fonts and
> >text properties like bold, underlined, etc.
> 
> So you were aware all along that it is not uncontroversial.  In
> fact, at some point in history it was changed to make it that
> prefix rather than the default goto-line that XEmacs and others
> bind to it.  With all due respect, a lot of people clearly
> believe that first change was the mistake; and just as clearly
> if they do it is because they think goto-line is a useful
> function.  Ergo, your statement that it isn't goes against the
> grain of a widely held belief.  Six of one, half a dozen of
> another!

I don't know where you get the statistics.  The decision was made IIRC
based on the majority of Emacs developers at that time.  So it's not
my own personal preference or something.

> Your mistake was say that it isn't for anyone.

Where did I say that?  If I did, that's some kind of bad wording for
which I apologize, since I never meant to say that.

> Let me be a little more succinct.  Your statement that if I use
> goto-line then I'm not using emacs well, because goto-line should
> be unnecessary, is both /arrogant/ and /ignorant/.
> 
> I suggest we drop this part of the discussion because it is
> abjectly silly to assume that your usage is the one true way.
> It *is* appropriate to explain to someone how you happen to use
> it, as an example they might find helpful.
> 
> _To_ _suggest_ _that_ _someone_ _else's_ _example_ _of_ _use_ _is_ _wrong_ 
> _is_
> _not_ _acceptable_.

I didn't say your usage was wrong.  I suggested that you take a good
look at it, but I didn't dictate any conclusions; that is something
that you should do for yourself.  If you conclude that nothing should
be changed, fine.

The suggestion was based on collective experience of many Emacs users
and developers (you might recall that Kai Grossjohann told you
essentially the same thing, that C-x ` is supposed to reduce the use
of goto-line to a minimum).  I fail to see how a suggestion to
reconsider something could be classified as arrogance, ignorance, or
any other derogatory term.  Nor can I understand, for that matter, why
did you need to change a technical discussion into name-calling.

> Perhaps you do not use Emacs enough or in ways that don't
> provide you with sufficient examples.  What you've left out of
> your equation is temporal effect.  If the
> compiler/grep/emacs/other-utility gave you a number, and you
> then proceed to do a variety of useful things for *any* period
> of time, be it 1 second or 10 days, the availability of that
> number in that way is diminished, if not entirely gone.  The
> question, if that number then becomes useful, is which way is
> easiest to reproduce it for Emacs.  *You* might want to
> re-compile something to get it, but I'll just use the goto-line
> function

I don't need to recompile because the output of the compiler is still
there in the *compilation* buffer.