Re: New package `typewriter.el'

Enrico Flor <[email protected]> writes:

> Hi Philip,
>
> Thank you for the comments!
>

[...]

>> Do you have a reason why you disable message logging here?
>
> Simply to prevent flooding the Messages buffer with error messages
> that could occur often and have little value in being stored?  I think
> it's a good default, but if you prefer it could be another user
> option.

How sever is this flooding?  The Messages buffer already has some
duplication.  I would generally advise to not be too clever with things
like these, in case the user has customizations use the Messages buffer.


[...]

>> Can you explain why you do this?
>
> You mean instead of simply
>
>   (setq-local inhibit-read-only nil)
>   
> ?  I actually don't remember but it would do the same thing.  If it's
> preferable, I have no issue.

No, I meant as in why are you setting inhibit-read-only to nil at all.
Are you ensuring that it is nil, or are you deactivating something set
somewhere else.

[...]

>> This is my main gripe, why is this a major mode and not a minor mode?
>> And as a major mode, why does it inherit from fundamental-mode and not
>> text-mode?
>
> Hah, I pondered this too actually.  I landed on the major mode for a
> few reasons.  This mode imposes really fundamental restrictions on
> things.  I don't see why someone would use activate this while working
> on an org-mode buffer, or latex-mode, let along any of the prog-modes.
> It doesn't really provide any supplementary feature, it's more a
> radical zero-features state.

What about text-mode?  Or something for a lightweight language like
markdown-mode?  Generally it is good to assume an open-world model: you
don't know much about the Emacs that will load this file, or what other
packages, hooks, minor modes, etc. the user has installed for their
particular workflow.  Reducing assumptions, including things like "I
don't know why someone would do this" is one such example.  But this is
just personal advice, opinions might differ.

> And this is also, in part, why fundamental mode.  The typewriter is so
> "dumb" that it has no use for text-specific syntax tables, awareness
> about paragraphs, and stuff like that.  I just thought it was simpler
> to have no default to "undo"?  But you'll note that text-mode is where
> the user will be if they want to quit the mode and do some editing on
> the text they wrote, because of course they will be treating the
> buffer content as text.

It seems like an orthogonal concern.  If the user really wants to keep
it dumb, they can use fundamental-mode, but I don't see why this had to
be a package-deal.  Also, major modes are fundamentally for the type of
file you are dealing with, while minor modes are supposed to provide
"well defined" modifications to the base behavior.

> Enrico