Re: visual-region-mode?

[Juri Linkov]

>> > The user might want it highlighted for various reasons, possibly not
>> > covered by the current implementation, where Emacs highlights the
>> > region only when 'mark-active' is non-nil.
>> 
>> Yes, and that leads to misunderstandings, like d-s-m.  It doesn't make
>> any sense to claim that there is a region when there is none highlighted
>> and only creates the inconsistency that an arbitrary part of a buffer
>> can be deleted or copied, accidentally or intentionally, i. e. that
>> something can be done with a region while the region is not active and
>> nothing should possibly be done with it.
>
> Again, that seems like the intention behind transient-mark-mode.  But
> the implementation is, then, in a way incomplete: C-w still kills the
> region, no matter whether it is active or not, in transient-mark-mode.

mark-even-if-inactive set to nil is much safer option - it prevents
accidental lossage caused by mistakenly typed C-w.