Re: nxml-mode: Derive from prog-mode instead of text-mode

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 14.05.2017 22:28, Philipp Stephani wrote:

> prog-mode is more of an implementation detail than an API. See e.g. the 
> discussion in 
> http://cc-mode-help.narkive.com/KcrSl9QI/standalone-cc-mode-doesn-t-run-prog-mode-hook: 
> "The fact that many programming lanuguage modes are derived from 
> prog-mode is an internal implementation detail, not a user level 
> feature, and users taking advantage of such things are liable to get 
> into trouble."

That is Alan's opinion, not gospel.

> I think it also represents a false dichotomy: computer languages can't 
> be arbitrarily classified in "programming" and "text"; it's rather a 
> continuum. If HTML is a "programming language", why not reStructuredText 
> or Markdown? All three are markup languages originally intended for 
> documents, with well-defined grammars. If Markdown is also a 
> "programming language", why not plain text files that contain similar 
> ad-hoc markup?

In the end, we have to consider whether an average user would consider a 
major mode to be "programming mode". Or we might choose some other 
criterion.

IIRC Stefan mentioned one such criterion: a mode has an indentation 
function that works significantly differently from indent-relative.