Subject: Re: bug#33870: 27.0.50; xref-goto-xref not configurable

From: João Távora <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2019 12:00:42 +0000

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

>> From: João Távora <[email-masked]>
>> Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2019 22:22:05 +0000
>> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>, Dmitry Gutov <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
>> 
>> On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 9:18 PM Juri Linkov <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Fortunately, the whole point of this bug report opened by Juri is to make
>> > > this configurable. Later, we can decide on a better default, something Juri
>> > > is also very much in favor of.
>> >
>> > With a better default such problems wouldn't happen if definitions were
>> > displayed in a new split window taking space from the original window.
>> 
>> It's only a "problem" in your opinion :-)  I was assuming Eli also thinks it's
>> a bad default, but he hasn't confirmed this yet (and like Dmitry perhaps
>> we was misunderstanding the reason for the behaviour). And neither has he
>> said that your proposal is better.
>
> I thought I did express my opinions, but maybe I'm confused wrt the
> question(s) you are asking.  Care to repeat them, for my benefit?

Eli, if that helps clear the confusion up front, this it has to do with
this last exchange, not with your email of 2018-12-26, 15:36, where you
said you would _not_ like to change the current default behaviour.  

If that doesn't help, and neither does reading the exchange, I'll try
a summary of the most recent events.

- Juri provided a purportedly 100% backward compatible patch that keeps
  current UI and allows xref.el windows to be configured by users.
  
- I tested the patch with many cases, including a corner use case.

- Dmitry expressed doubts about the behaviour of that case

- You expressed the same doubts as Dmitry's

- I explained that it is the defined behaviour

- Dmitry accepted the explanation

- Drew wrote something that I didn't read/understand fully (sorry Drew!)

- Juri took your doubts as evidence of a problem in the current UI.

- I explained again that it is the defined and default UI, but changing
  is on the table, especially if you, unlike Dmitry, don't accept the
  explanation I gave for the corner case that you said isn't correct.
  
So Eli, maintainer of Emacs, the Editor:

1. Should xref.el be made configurable so that multiple UI's are
   available to users, keeping the current default in in Emacs 26.1?  We
   have at least two candidate patches that do this.
   
2. Should the default UI in Emacs 26.1 be changed?

As has been done at least 10 times in this thread, I propose to do the
former first and then discuss the latter.  I can also say that I am a
bit tired of this: the thread has got so entangled that I'm now spending
time re-explaining these relatively simple premises.

João