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: Sat, 24 Feb 2018 12:35:09 +0200

> Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2018 08:16:09 -0800 (PST)
> From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
> 
> Following up on the request by Nicolas Goaziou in bug #28263, please
> consider adding some information about the keys that users can bind.

I'm sorry, but I really don't understand the issue here, and I would
prefer not to re-read the long discussion in that bug report (and
expect not to be any wiser if I did).  Can someone please summarize
the issue at hand?

> 1. Say that Emacs and 3rd-party Lisp libraries often bind keys, but that
>    some keys are specifically reserved, by convention, for users.  Point
>    out which keys are reserved for users.

Users can bind _any_ keys, as you yourself say:

> 2. Make it clear that users can, in any case, bind ANY keys they want;
>    they are not limited to binding user-reserved keys.  In particular,
>    users can rebind keys that Emacs or some 3rd-party library has already
>    bound.

Given this, what good will it do to say something about keys reserved
for users in the user manual?  Lisp developers should know that, which
is why i tis in the ELisp manual.

> 3. State that after a user has bound a key, evaluating some Emacs code
>    (including loading a Lisp library) might rebind that key if it is not
>    reserved for users.  This is the reason some keys are reserved for
>    users: to prevent the bother of some non-user code overriding user
>    key bindings.

How would this help users?  What would they do to avoid that?

Bottom line, I don't really understand the issue you are asking to be
solved.  The bug report is phrased as a list of instructions to be
executed, but that's not how bug reporting should work -- you should
describe the problem itself as well.

Thanks.