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Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 11:38:30 -0500
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From: Bill Dubuque <wgd@martigny.ai.mit.edu>
To: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org
Subject: do not auto-modify files by default [was: 19.15 b4 success and beef]

>>>>> "BW" == Ben Wing <wing@best.com> writes:

  BW> I agree, make next-line-add-newlines be nil by default.
  BW> Principle of least surprise ...

  BW> require-final-newline should *NOT* default to t.  Principle of
  BW> least surprise, likesay ...

I agree strongly.

The defaults should be such that files are not gratuitously modified,
especially for files of type/mode about which nothing is known.

It might make sense to change the default bindings for _certain_
major modes, but it would be seriously wrong to change the toplevel
default bindings. E.g. this might wreak havoc on newbies who 
accidentally modify a binary file, or accidentally C-N past the
end of a huge file, thus inserting a newline and possible creating
a huge autosave file, exhausting disk space, etc. etc. Bad news.

-Bill

