Subject: Re: bug#18992: 24.4; describe-mode

From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2019 12:35:29 +0100

Tassilo Horn <[email-masked]> writes:

> Well, but of course having the mode functions printed in `describe-mode'
> wouldn't hurt anyway.  This patch does that:
[...]
> With that, in this message buffer I get:
>
> Message mode (`message-mode') defined in `message.el':
> Major mode for editing mail and news to be sent.
> Like Text Mode but with these additional commands:

I don't think this is an improvement.  It risks confusing more than it
helps, especially for beginning users.

We can already say `C-h v major-mode RET' which to my mind is wholly
sufficient for anyone who needs to know the value of the `major-mode'
variable.

> With the following patch, the same would be done for the active minor
> modes, too:
[...]
> However, in contrast to major-modes, minor mode names tend to be much
> longer, so we can get some long lines like:
>
> Global-Edit-Server-Edit minor mode (`global-edit-server-edit-mode'; no indicator):

I think this is even less of an improvement.

I suggest to close this as wontfix.  If I don't see any objections,
I'll just go ahead and do that within a couple of weeks.  Please send
any opinions on this issue before then.

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas