RE: ilisp keybindings in emacs

From: Bob Rogers on Sunday, April 20, 2003 8:14 PM
>    I would like to add the suggestion that, at the very least, the
> FSF-compliant bindings should become the default out of the 
> box.  (This
> may have been your intent, but I don't believe you ever said so out
> loud.)  We should probably also start to call the other set the
> "traditional" bindings.  This ought to make getting started with ilisp
> easier.

This was not my original intent; however, I am happy to make the 
necessary change if this is the consensus opinion. This (or course) has 
the potential to break other people's setups if the default is changed
to be the fsf keybindings. Do we really want to subject ourselves to 
the gazillion emails that usually result from such a change?

>    FWIW, ilisp keybindings were chosen at the time to be familiar to
> people coming from the Lisp Machine (modulo keyboard limitations), or
> the Allegro environment (which was modelled on the LispM to some
> extent).  This is now ancient history, and Lisp Machine 
> compatibility no
> longer makes sense, not even for us dinosaurs that never learned to
> touch-type emacs on a "standard" keyboard layout.  However, I 
> note that
> there is a ilisp-lispm-bindings function that installs the exact Zmacs
> bindings, e.g. "C-S-c" for compile-defun-lisp where "S-" is shift.  We
> might want to consider using these instead of the traditional 
> bindings;
> there's a comment that says the LispM style bindings are not
> FSF-compliant, but that wouldn't matter if FSF bindings became the
> default.  But perhaps this is too radical; it wouldn't help 
> the newbies
> in any case.

My own opinion is that this is too radical - any user who wants to use
the lispm bindings can select them manually. In any case, there are 
only a few lispm bindings supported.

>    * I note that most of your proposed bindings are of the form "C-c
> M-something", but it seems to me that "C-c C-something" would be less
> awkward to type.  Or is this frowned on by the FSF keybinding rules?

No, it is consistent with the FSF keybinding rules and would be easier
to type. I'll change the proposed FSF ILD keybindings from "C-c M-something"

to "C-c C-something" (where possible)if nobody sees any reason not to.

>    * Seems to me that edit-definitions-lisp should probably 
> stay on "M-.";
> it shadows find-tag, but provides much the same functionality 
> in a more
> Lisp-aware way.  If that isn't a good enough reason to violate the
> rules, then I'm not sure what is.
> 
>    * next-definition-lisp (on "M-,") is less clear, as
> next-definition-lisp is not really equivalent to tags-loop-continue --
> in any case, "C-u M-." invokes next-definition-lisp (in CVS).

I've had a number of emails specifically about "M-." and "M-,". Some 
have indicated a preference for letting them override the "standard" tag
functionality (since they perform the same type of functionality and the
fsf standards permit that type of override) while others indicated that 
they don't think a major mode should step on "any" bindings. One 
alternative might be to have "C-c M-." and "C-c M-," as the FSF bindings
but to have a variable "ilisp-*use-standard-keybindings-for-definitions*"
that allows the user to override the FSF bindings and use "M-." and "M-," 
instead.

>    You should take this all with a grain of salt; whatever 
> you actually
> do, I shall probably stick with (setq 
> ilisp-*enable-dinosaur-mode-p* t)
> for a bit longer.  ;-}

No, I'm glad to hear other people's opinions on this. Changing keybindings
has a terrific impact on existing users and we need to make certain that 
we do it properly.

--
Bill Clementson


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