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Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual termin
From: |
Alan Mackenzie |
Subject: |
Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal |
Date: |
Wed, 8 Apr 2009 08:13:42 +0000 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.5.9i |
Hi, Stephen!
On Wed, Apr 08, 2009 at 02:35:16PM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie writes:
> > The cons in the marked line is of the mark and the variable
> > `mark-active'. This variable doesn't have a coherent definition,
> > but it causes the region to be highlit. It is "defined" as
> > Non-nil means the mark and region are currently active in this
> > buffer.
> > As I have pointed out before, this is Humpty Dumpty language,
> Not at all. Active regions and the terminology go back twenty years
> or more.
I don't doubt this, but it has no bearing on the matter.
> If the mark is non-nil, then the region exists. The region may be
> active, ....
What is the activity that this region does? Does the region delete a
block of characters? Does the region jump to the start of the next
defun?
Supposing you have a geologist inside a dead volcano, examining it,
measuring it, chipping bits out of it. You would call this an "active
volcano", would you?
> ...., in which case operations on the region will succeed, or inactive,
> when such operations will fail.[1]
This is a misuse of the word "active", just as confusing as talking about
"protecting" a copyright work rather than "restricting" it. In any
sentence with a verb of activity, "the region" is always in the object
position, never the subject position.
"Active" is the wrong word. Possibly "Reactive" would be a suitable one
- a "reactive region" being one which reacts to commands directed at it.
> In transient-mark-mode, it is possible for the region to be inactive.
> Outside of transient- mark-mode, the region is always active. (Or
> something like that, that's how zmacs-regions works in XEmacs,
> transient-mark-mode has some tiny differences that I never understood
> very well.)
> It sounds to me like there's a bug in desktop.el[2], and maybe a lack of
> documentation of active regions. But the term is well-defined.
"Active region" is not well defined, which is what caused the bug in
desktop. In particular, it is ill defined whilst transient-mark-mode is
not enabled. Because "active" is here a purely conventional label,
disconnected from its normal semantics, hackers get confused as to what
they really mean by it. Two competing definitions here are "highlit" and
"reacts to region commands"; one hacker understood the former meaning,
the other the latter.
I think that desktop needs to record whether a region is highlit. Or
something like that.
Do you have definitions of (as contrasted to a discussion around) "active
region" and "active mark" that you could contribute to the Emacs manual?
> Footnotes:
> [2] I guess, as you say, it should record and check for
> transient-mark-mode before going ahead and highlighting regions.
> Personally, I would prefer desktop to have an option such that mark
> status is always reset across sessions.
Yes. Maybe. Perhaps.... transient-mark-mode is not simple.
--
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
- Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal, (continued)
- Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal, Miles Bader, 2009/04/05
- Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal, Alan Mackenzie, 2009/04/07
- Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal, Stephen J. Turnbull, 2009/04/08
- Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal,
Alan Mackenzie <=
- Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal, Eli Zaretskii, 2009/04/08
- Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal, Stephen J. Turnbull, 2009/04/08
- Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal, Alan Mackenzie, 2009/04/08
- Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal, Stephen J. Turnbull, 2009/04/08
Re: Reopen bug 535: Problem with highlit regions on Linux virtual terminal, Chong Yidong, 2009/04/05