Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete

[Ian Zimmerman]

Ian> It would make me scream every time I select a region and then
Ian> forget about it (which is _very_ often) and then try to activate
Ian> delete-backward-char with DEL (which is _also very often_).

Tassilo> How can you forget about your active region?  I mean, it's
Tassilo> highlighted.  If you already turned off transient-mark-mode,
Tassilo> then you won't be affected anyway.

Ian> By the way, what would delete-backward-char be bound to if this
Ian> change is implemented?

Tassilo> ,----[ C-h f delete-backward-char RET ] | delete-backward-char
Tassilo> is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `simple.el'.
Tassilo> | 
Tassilo> | It is bound to DEL.

One reaction to both hunks: have you read the actual proposal by RMS?  I
have, but perhaps I misread it so in that case please point out my
error.  As I understand it if the proposal is approved active region
status or transient-mark-mode won't matter - it will be enough to just
have a region at all (ie. to have set a mark and have mark != point).
And, this command will be bound to DEL, replacing the current binding to
delete-backward-char.  Since delete-backward-char seems to have no other
key binding, I was interested if another binding for it was planned.

In the end, this doesn't matter very much to me practically, because a
one line addition to my .emacs would revert to the old behavior [1].
But I strongly object philosophically, along the lines expressed in the
other subthread.

[1] 
It would be a pain when running with -q, though.

-- 
Ian Zimmerman
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