RE: delete-selection-mode as default

[Drew Adams]

> > The point of persistent blocks is that you can mark a region and leave
> > it for a while before actually doing something to it. It is not a goal
> > to be able to mark a block somewhere far away without ever leaving
> > your position.
> >
> > So: you move point to one end, press a key (or hold down Shift), move
> > to the other end, press another key (or release Shift), move to the
> > target position, press an action key (C-k c for copy, C-k v for move).
> > All without killing anything. Very pacifistic.
> 
> And how, may I ask, you then indicate which of the "blocks" is to be
> acted upon by some command?

How do you choose anything in Emacs? There are many ways.

To choose a kill (or to a secondary selection) using
`browse-kill-ring', you cycle among those on the ring
to get to the one you want.

That's also an approach for choosing a previous search
pattern for Isearch.

But another common approach lets you use completion to
choose. That's used even for selections (and buffer positions
for navigation) by several libraries.

Still another approach is to offer a menu of choices.

(But I wonder why you even ask such a question.)

> More to the point, what does this feature have to do with
> delete-selection-mode and transient-mark-mode, and the issues we have
> with their mix?  Or did this discussion wandered away without hope?

There are at least two threads (per their Subject lines) that
have been discussing point, mark, region, selection, navigation,
etc. in Emacs. Hw has put his preferences front and center in
the discussions, and they have to do with the kind of thing
discussed right here: defining and using stretches of text that
do not necessarily have the cursor at one end.

I too would like to see a narrower discussion that fits only
the current Subject line. I would like to see that in addition
the more far-ranging discussion, which I also welcome. But
this Subject's actual thread, like the one it forked from, has
been pretty wide-ranging throughout.