Re: Aliasing zmacs-regions, providing a transient-mark-mode

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian Palmer <[email protected]> writes:

    Brian> Hrvoje Niksic <[email protected]> writes:

    >> For one, there are behavioral differences I noticed while
    >> trying to use FSF Emacs, but which I can't remember right now.

FWIW, I also recall subtle differences, but not what they were.  I
suspect that there are commands where XEmacs deactivates the mark but
GNU Emacs does not or vice versa.

    Brian> And that suggests (interactive "_") would be short work for
    Brian> the emacs developers to add, should they choose to do so.

Really?  To make a compatible interface they'd have to fix all the
functions that went the other way.  Not likely.  Not to mention that
XEmacs compatibility is deprecated in GNU; that never seems to be an
acceptable reason for doing anything.  Any feature imported from
XEmacs has to justify itself, and they often tweak APIs and change
names.

    Brian> Nothing which suggests that the two approaches are not
    Brian> mostly compatible except for names,

And the default case, which is the killer, no?

    Brian> I suggested providing a transient-mark-mode
    Brian> function which would toggle the variable.

I would veto that name for the primary function, although half-baked
GNU compatibility suggests providing the alias would be a good idea.
`transient-mark-mode' suggests that the mark evaporates, which it
certainly does not.  It's not the mark's existence that changes, it's
the region's.

How about `transient-region-mode'?

    Brian> To me, it doesn't make sense to pick a different name when
    Brian> the two are so close in goal, approaches, and features.

FWIW, rms does so almost as a matter of principle.


-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.