Subject: Re: bug#30530: 26.0; Emacs manual: mention (1) user-reserved keys, (2) users can bind any keys

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2018 17:49:03 +0200

> Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 07:17:14 -0800 (PST)
> From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked]
> 
> It is fine for the Emacs and Elisp manuals to point out that users
> can bind these keys and that the keys are reserved for them.
> [...]
> That's not the same thing as the doc of a library that
> most Emacs users use, and that is often the gateway to
> starting to use Emacs, telling users that they should
> bind these keys _for that library_, for best results.

There's no difference here that I can see.  Library docs are written
by the same people who answer questions in stackoverflow and write
blogs, and draw from the same knowledge and experience.  Suggestions
for convenient key bindings in a manual that describes a library is no
different from a suggestion in a blog about such bindings.  Making
them different, let alone to a degree that requires denigrating one of
them, is more than splitting hair.

> Either the keys are reserved for users or they are
> not.  IMHO, the _single_ message about these keys
> from Emacs to users (especially new users) should
> be the message that these keys are reserved for
> their use.  End of story.

Saying that they are reserved and suggesting to bind them in some
situation are two different ways of saying the same thing.