Re: Confused by y-or-n-p

[Richard Stallman]

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  > > I think reversing the default would be less than optimal for two
  > > reasons: 1) The new behaviour is in Emacs 27, and flopping back to the
  > > Emacs 26 behaviour just sounds confusing

  > See - that's the problem with saying that Emacs
  > can just go ahead and change stuff, because we
  > can always backtrack later.

Your response is stated in a somewhat flip tone, but its point is
valid.  As you've stated, there is a lot of resistance to changing
back.

The dynamic that results is this:

* A few people decide to make a UI change, which many have not noticed.

* Some people eventually notice it in master, or in a release, and maybe
  people start objecting.

* At that point there is resistance to changing back.

The end result is a tendency to make changes because a few people
are in favor of them, and then it is hard to avoid them.

Here is how I think it should work.

* A few people decide to make a UI change, which many have not noticed.

* Someone points out that such a change should be discussed on
  emacs-devel.  So they do that, before installation.

* If some are opposed, they install the feature with a variable to
  enable it, disabled by default.

* Some time later -- it need not be soon -- poll the users and see who
  likes it _and why_.  Maybe change the default.

This will (1) eliminate the bad dynamic, (2) result in installing
these features quickly but with a variable to enable, and (3) in a
reasonable period adopt a default based on knowing who likes the
feature.
-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)