RE: delete-selection-mode as default

[Drew Adams]

> > Currently even when a region is not active (it is a hidden region
> > because it is not highlighted), you can do something with it, so users
> > always get an "active" region even when they don't want one.  It's only
> > a bit less active than it is when it is highlighted.
> 
> As I've pointed out several times in the distant past, the terminology
> used for things in this part of Emacs is thoroughly suboptimal.  A region
> is never "active"; it never does anything, it is never an agent.  For
> example.

OK. Perhaps a better term for it would have been "activated", not "active".

And yes, a region is always activated (or enabled or able to be acted) on,
in multiple ways. Someone picked a term for a region being activated for
certain kinds of action. Some term for what is meant by that is useful -
some term beyond just "highlighted" or "selected".

"Active region" is OK, I think. Anyway, it's what we've been using, and I
don't think it's awfully confusing, even if it can be a bit misleading.

> One of the uses of C-x C-x is to check what is currently in the region.
> Typically, you'd type it twice, to get back to your starting point.

More exactly, one of the uses of C-x C-x _highlighting_ is that. You want
a visual indication of the limits of the region, and perhaps of all of its
contents. The other thing that C-x C-x does is activate the region, and
in your case you do not need/want that.

> There are many advantages to having transient-mark-mode disabled:
> primarily simplicity, and the severe reduction in the modal behaviour (in
> the sense of key sequences doing different things in things like vi's
> insert mode and command mode).  And I'm not happy having my font-locking
> splatted by the region's highlighting.

Being able to apply some actions to the region (or being unable to do
so) is just a thing. It can be limiting, as you suggest. But it can also be
handy - depending on the user and what s?he wants to do.

Just as `delete-selection-mode' provides essentially an implicit
C-w, which can be either a convenience or a bother, depending,
so can isolating the region for acting on it, but just highlighting
it instead of narrowing to it (so you can still see the surrounding
context) be either a  convenience or a bother, depending.

I like to have (and use) both, at different times: (1) narrowing to
the region to act on it and (2) activating the region to act on it.

My `isearch+.el' lets me limit Isearch to the active region, for
instance, but still see the surrounding context. Do I always use
that, instead of narrowing and then searching? No. I do both,
at different times. I like having the option to do either.

> But everybody's different here, with different preferences, likes, hates.
> It's a mistake (which I've made quite a few times) to assume that
> "obvious" options in Emacs actually are obvious.

100% agreement on that. And the preferences of the same
user can even change over time and as new possibilities arise.