From xemacs-m  Fri May 16 18:34:56 1997
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To: Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr>
Cc: XEmacs Developers <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>
Subject: Re: DEL patch, as promised.
References: <bciaflv2kuv.fsf@corp.Sun.COM> <kigiv0jrthb.fsf@jagor.srce.hr>
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From: Gary.Foster@Corp.Sun.COM (Gary D. Foster)
Date: 16 May 1997 16:34:21 -0700
In-Reply-To: Hrvoje Niksic's message of 16 May 1997 23:34:56 +0200
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Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> What you propose is the following:
> 
>      Get rid of the define-keys for delete in all XEmacs modes,
>      including the third-party modes that aren't (and will never be)
>      under our control.  Instead of the perfectly valid key
>      definitions, use a new, incompatible function/hook.

No, that's not exactly correct.  What I propose is:

If you WANT to write your own electric-delete function, you go ahead
and do so just as you normally would have done before.  NOTHING
changes at all.  The only thing that changes is that instead of doing
a "define-key" or whatever to bind it, you use the hook to bind it.

If you DON'T want to write your own delete function, you leave it the
hell alone.  It's amazing how many packages contained:

(define-key foo-mode-map "\177" backward-delete-char-untabify)

And some of them were rude enough that they didn't even bother
redefining it in a local mode map but changed it for EVERYONE instead.

And I've taken great pains to take long painful look at designing the
hook such that it's NOT incompatible.  It took me something like three 
lines of code that I added to cc-mode to make it take advantage of
it.  Does that sound incompatible to you?

> I think I prefer the translation hacks.  On the other hand, I may have
> somehow misunderstood your change.

Well, be that as it may... the translation hacks are just
that... hacks.  It's time to stop hacking at it and fix it for real.
Please *try* out what I've posted and give it a good shakedown before
passing judgement.  I've given it a lot of thought and a lot of
consideration and I'd take it very kindly if you'd at least give it a
good solid perusal and give me real, honest feedback.  It's time we
separated the emotions from the issues and got on with fixing it.

Bottom line is that I *believe* (although I may be wrong) that you
could apply the patch and continue to do business as usual and not
notice a single thing different about any behaviors on *your* setup,
while someone who chooses differently can simply enable the option
from the tool bar and also be satisfied.  If that's *not* the case, I
will gladly accept all feedback and jump up and down on the code until
that *IS* the case.

-- Gary F.

