GNU bug report logs - #22564
Fundamental mode isn't fundamental enough.

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From: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: jwiegley <at> gmail.com, johnw <at> gnu.org, 22564 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, rgm <at> gnu.org, acm <at> muc.de
Subject: bug#22564: Fundamental mode isn't fundamental enough.
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2022 21:53:03 -0400

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The doc string of `electric-indent-mode' is deficient -- it fails to say
what it will concretely do in an uncustomized Emacs.  All it says is this:

    When enabled, this reindents whenever the hook ‘electric-indent-functions’
    returns non-nil, or if you insert a character from ‘electric-indent-chars’.

To see what that concretely does, you have to look at those variables.
That's asking too much, for a beginner.  This doc string should say
where to find the specifics of what it does in Fundametal mode.

I looked at them and found that `electric-indent-chars' has TAB (10) in it.
However, TAB has a global binding, `indent-for-tab-command'.

What, then, does Electric Indent mode alter in Fundamental mode?  Does
it alter anything?  Was there a concrete motive for proposing to
disable it in Fundamental mode?  We need to help users find out these
things.  Is there a way, other than by reading electric.el?

The doc string also fails to say what, concretely, reindenting does, or even
what controls what reindenting does.  So it needs a lot of improvement.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

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