Re: `C-b' is backward-char, `left' is left-char - why?

[Antoine Levitt]

28/05/11 00:08, Drew Adams
>> > Why not have a minor mode for the bidi stuff
>> 
>> Bidi cannot be a minor mode, because bidi reordering for display
>> should happen automatically whenever there are right-to-left
>> characters in a buffer.  Minor modes don't work that way.
>
> That it should automatically do things for people who want it I can 
> understand.
> But for someone who never wants it?
>
> More importantly, what prevents a minor mode, which could even be enabled by
> default for all I care, from doing just what you said: automatically...?  Turn
> on the mode and you get what you've provided - everything.  Turn it off and 
> you
> get what Emacs has provided for years, limited as it might be.
>
> I don't see how using a minor mode would prevent you from doing anything at 
> all
> that you want or need to do.  Can you please explain that?  At least having a
> mode for this would give users a way to turn all of its effects off 
> (hopefully -
> at least the key hijacking I'm referring to).
>
> IOW, if your `left-char' command makes sense only when bidi minor mode is 
> turned
> on, then it would not be made to hijack `left' except when that mode is on.
> Minor modes can have their own keymaps, and if need be they can also be made 
> to
> change/restore other bindings (i.e. in different maps) when you turn them
> on/off.

I don't want to get into the heated exchanges (to put things kindly)
that seem to usually result from your posts, but why do you need "C-f"
and "right" to be the same thing? If it's for some generic code (for
instance, preview.el has the variable preview-auto-reveal that needs to
know that C-f and "right" both enter the preview), then it needs to
accomodate this use case for people who do use bidi, and if it's for
private code, surely you can rebind them (which takes just one more line
in your .emacs than turning off the minor mode).

So what's the point of changing stuff that works fine and adding a
trivial minor mode that is going to pollute our already crowded C-h m?