Re: AUCTeX and "builtin latex mode" integration

[Stefan Monnier]

>>> I wonder why/if it's important that the AUCTeX modes identify as the
>>> builtin modes, i.e., what would be the issue with having (La)TeX-mode
>>> major-modes which have no relationship to (la)tex-mode at all plus a
>>> setup command users would call in their init file in order to modify
>>> `auto-mode-alist' so that the AUCTeX modes are added?
>>
>> It might cause problems for people with `-*- latex -*-` in their
>> files.  But other than that, it's also an option, indeed.
>>
>> Personally, I like the idea that `auto-mode-alist` (and mode cookies)
>> should describe the type of a file, rather than the specific mode to
>> use for it, but that's just me
>
> Could you elaborate a bit here?  I can't quite follow.

What I mean is that the entries in mode cookies and auto-mode-alist
(and magic-mode-alist, ...) should not say "use this specific mode" but
"use the mode which the user chose for files of this specific type".

Emacs doesn't have the corresponding concept, so instead we use
`latex-mode` resp. `perl-mode` as "the name of the mode to use for LaTeX
resp. Perl files" and then we rely on hacks based on `defalias` or
`advice-add` to make that symbol point to the user's favorite mode for
that file type.

> Anyway: where the actual complaints not more or less like "I want to
> use the stock tex/latex modes but also with cdlatex which requires the
> auctex package which then hijacks my editing"?

No (BTW, `cdlatex` doesn't require AUCTeX any more).

> I think that wouldn't be a bad idea anyway (except for compatibility
> reasons) because nowadays we all agree that merely installing and
> loading a package should not have side-effects.

Agreed.  Maybe `AUCTeX-mode` should be a global minor mode which causes
`AUCTeX-minor-mode` to be enabled in the appropriate major modes.


        Stefan