Subject: RE: [External] : bug#50811: 28.0.50; Misleading Docstring for read-string function

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2021 15:17:27 +0000

> The point is that we want to move away from pre-filled prompts in
> Emacs, and instead put the default in the "future history", i.e., say
> (read-string "PROMPT " nil nil "B")
> and then the user should `M-n' to edit the default.

Yes, and that "moving away" is misguided, IMHO.
There was never any reason to call INITIAL-INPUT
obsolete.

It's not either-or.

Just because `M-n' and DEFAULTS are useful, that's
never been a logical reason to make INITIAL-INPUT
obsolete.

(Oh, and that misguided deprecation was proclaimed
long before we allowed DEFAULTS to be a list and
not just a single value.)