Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Re: removing past start position

On 4/14/20 11:45 AM, Tavis Ormandy wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 11:34:28AM -0700, Brian L. Matthews wrote:
>>> Yeah, would need another value in 'backspace'. CTRL-W stopping at the
>>> insert point has always been the behavior.
>>> :set backspace=indent,eol,start,nostop
>>> Can't think of a good name for "nostop", could be improved. Or just:
>>> :set bs=3
>>>
>> While certainly it's your guys' decision, but, as CTRL-W stops but then
>> continues before the start of the insertion, is another option really
>> necessary? In fact, I think it could be the current behavior is better, as
>> it stops indicating you've now deleted everything you just entered, but if
>> you really want to delete more, just keep hitting CTRL-W.
>>
> You don't need CTRL-W at all if you don't mind hitting more keys, but
> since we do have it and configurable behaviour, why not cover all the
> variations people could want?

While this is more software design philosophy than vim-specific, it's
because every configurable behavior requires code to parse the new
option (however minimal), code to use the new option, one or more tests,
documentation changes, it makes the code that little bit harder to
maintain and learn, and it makes learning to use the software a little
bit harder. If the new behavior is significantly better, then yes, why
not. I'm not sure if this qualifies.

> I understand you like bs=2, you probably wouldn't be too thrilled if it
> was changed to require more keystrokes, even if you could just keep
> hitting more keys :)

There's a difference between changing long-existing behavior and adding
new behavior. Yes, I wouldn't be happy if bs=2 went away, I use that all
the time (with BS). But that's not what we're discussing here (a fairer
comparison would be if it was changed so BS would have to be hit a
second time upon hitting the start of inserted text to continue into
existing text. While changing it now would affect decades (literally!)
of muscle memory, in time I'd learn, and if it had always worked that
way, I would have seen it as a feature.)

Anyways, as I said, this is completely up to Bram (and Christian). I'm
certainly not going to like and use vim any less if the new option and
behavior is added (or if it's not), just offering my opinion. I'm nobody
:-), so feel free to ignore it.

Brian

--
--
You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist.
Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to.
For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "vim_use" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to vim_use+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vim_use/edd76a8d-0f74-ad6f-0e86-88c08cbc8b2e%40gmail.com.

No comments: