Re: delete-selection-mode as default (WAS: Some developement questions)

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Eli.

On Sat, Sep 08, 2018 at 12:26:43 +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2018 14:03:46 +0530
> > CC: address@hidden
> > From: Bingo <address@hidden>

> > 1. When Emacs first starts, see if there is an init file. Various
> > modern software do so, so we would be on solid ground there.

> > 2. If so, trust the user that he would have set delete-selection-mode
> > as required.

> I'm not sure this is a valid assumption.  A user could have
> delete-selection-mode not turned on because she had no idea such a
> thing existed in Emacs.

> >  This would avoid stepping on the toes of power users : which form
> >  the majority of Emacs users.

> Please note that veteran users only care about defaults when they need
> to use Emacs on someone else's machine, or when logged on as some other
> user (like root or su).

A third situation, in which at least one veteran user (me) cares is when
testing a bug fix with emacs -Q.  In such cases, I can get fairly
irritated by, e.g., transient-mark-mode, and would get even more
irritated were delete-selection-mode to be enabled by default.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).