Re: Proposal: new default bindings for winner and windmove

[Po Lu]

Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:

> The above is true, but it misses the point.  That point is that once the
> Emacs maintenance team has added a _default_ binding, that can never in
> the future be changed.  People will scream "backward compatibility"
> until the heat death of the universe.
>
> In that sense, "keybinding real estate" very much is a real issue - we
> can only add so many default key bindings, and once added they are
> difficult to change or to remove.

Yes, but backwards compatibility is merely the tip of the iceberg.  New
keybindings introduce discrepancies between the habits of existing users
and the expectations of recent adopters, and, for those users who have
still to bind them, a new default keybinding that they will be reluctant
to override.  If only because they regard our work and our judgement
with respect, which extends to the keybindings we select as well.  All
the more reason _NOT_ to adopt a collection of bindings in a keymap to
which they are adventitious, and for a package objectively less popular
than ffap, which does deserve a place in the said keymap, upon a
proposal by their only user.

>> In my view, having considered this discussion in full, the benefits of
>> adding these key bindings, favored by several developers, therefore
>> outweigh the perceived drawbacks.

Used by one.  Favored by several who probably have not formed strong
opinions in either direction, as did the ingenuous respondents to the
Time magazine poll mentioned here:

  
https://www.commentary.org/articles/robert-myers/the-study-of-man-opinion-polls-and-public-policy/

>> - The proposal is to add global bindings, which AFAIU means that they
>>   will not affect people that are binding these keys to something else
>>   (whether globally or in specific modes).

You state that it does not, but this has been disputed three times over
in this thread alone (and again in the first paragraph), no one having
so much as acknowledged the disagreement, let alone pretended seriously
to offer a rebuttal.