GNU bug report logs - #1183
23.0.60; ediff-buffers is broken

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From: Michael Kifer <kifer <at> cs.sunysb.edu>
To: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
Cc: "'Stefan Monnier'" <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>,
        <1183 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>, "'Eli Zaretskii'" <eliz <at> gnu.org>,
        <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>, "'Michael Kifer'" <kifer <at> cs.stonybrook.edu>
Subject: bug#1183: 23.0.60; ediff-buffers is broken
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:05:33 -0400

On Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:48:06 -0700
"Drew Adams" <drew.adams <at> oracle.com> wrote:

> > > But first, we should decide whether we want such buffers to compare
> > > equal or not.
> > 
> > I believe we do, because it's called ediff-buffers.  There's 
> > ediff-files for when you want to compare the files.
> 
> That's terrible. Ediff-buffers has always been usable directly for buffers
> visiting files also. 

I didn't see the original post, but the general idea was that whenever things
look the same in Emacs they should be treated as equal (or equal module spaces).
I do not think the user should be bothered with encodings. Copying from buffer
to buffer should also be transparent. (And ediff-files and ediff-buffers should
produce the same results.)

Unfortunately, I have not been following the developments in the last few
years, and my knowledge of the mechanics became rusty.


	--michael  


> It's OK for ediff-buffers to be more refined than before, to be able to take
> into account current encodings etc. for the buffers, but it should inform the
> user of the situation and let the user, if s?he wants, proceed to compare the
> buffers using the same encodings etc. - or whatever is necessary to see the
> actual textual differences, beyond encoding etc. differences.
> 
> The same behavior as previously (Emacs 22) should be available as a user choice
> if the only differences are line endings, encodings, etc. And such differences
> as line endings should at least be treated as differences and shown as such.
> It's no good to just say the buffers are different, without offering more info
> than that.
> 
> IOW, ediff-buffers should be at least as useful as it was before. Adding coding
> diffs should be a plus, not a minus. Simply punting, showing a single giant diff
> with no possible refinement and no explanation, is not helpful.
> 
> > > We could also let them compare equal, but display a message to the
> > > effect that the buffers define different encoding for saving them to
> > > files. Opinions?
> > 
> > That would be fine, indeed.
> 
> Fine, but not enough. If a user wants to see the textual differences between the
> two buffers, the info that the encodings are different is not helpful enough to
> get the job done. In the case described, there are real textual differences (an
> added Lisp sexp), and ediff-buffers is not at all helpful in showing them.
> 
> 
> 

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