Subject: bug#62892: proposal to extend mark-sexp to go forward and backward on command

From: Eshel Yaron <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 May 2023 17:56:54 +0300

One data point that I think is worth taking into consideration:
Currently, `mark-sexp` and `mark-defun` are not consistent with each
other.  This can be seen in the following example:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(foo)
(bar)
(baz)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

With point before `(bar)`, doing `C-2 C-M-SPC C-- C-M-SPC` leaves only
`(bar)` selected.  OTOH, doing `C-2 C-M-h C-- C-M-h` leaves all three
expressions selected.

In contrast, the proposed `mark-sexp-forward` and `mark-defun-forward`
are consistent with each other (both behave like `mark-defun` in the
above example).

I'm not sure if that's the preferred behavior, but I do think that
consistently between the different marking commands is a good thing.

-- 
Best,

Eshel