Re: Bugs caused by recent use of define-derived-mode

[Luc Teirlinck]

Miles Bader wrote:

   E.g., probably `mail-mode' should have its own abbrev table,

I am not convinced about this.  I am also not convinced by the default
for C-x a (i) l you and Kai are proposing.

Most of a mail message is just text. You have mail addresses, but
these are handled separately anyway, as mail abbrevs.  Maybe the
people that complained about not being able to define mail-specific
abbrevs were complaining about not being able to define mailabbrevs
with a C-x a l style command.  Currently you can not do that, but I am
working on a unified mailalias-mailabbrev system.  With that system
you will be able to define mailabbrevs with a C-x a l style command
not only from mail buffers, but from other buffers too, such as RMAIL
buffers.

For instance, I have a text-mode abbrev sl expanding into 

Sincerely,

Luc.

I use this very frequently in mail-mode, but barely ever (although not
never) in text-mode.  This abbrev was definitely defined to be used
specifically in mail messages, but why would I need to "hide" it from
text-mode?  If I had any need to do that, I would not be able to use
the name sl in mail-mode either, for exactly the same reason I could
not use it in text-mode.  For instance, if my first name were, say,
Oswald, I could not use "so" as an abbrev name because "so" would
expand all the time in regular text.  But nearly all of the typing in
a mail-message is regular text.  So I could not use it in mail-mode
either, anyway.  If unwanted expansion in text-mode is a problem,
unwanted expansion in mail-mode is a problem.  Even if mail-mode had a
separate abbrev-table from text-mode, it would seem that I would like
the vast majority the local abbrevs I defined in mail-mode to expand
in text-mode too and hence the text-mode-abbrev-table would actually
be a more logical default for C-x a l than the mail-mode abbrev-table.

Hence I have a hard time seeing why mail-mode should have its own
abbrev table.  I also have a hard time seeing why the most local
abbrev table would be such an obvious default for C-x a (i) l.

Sincerely,

Luc.