Re: turning off all indentation

[Lynn Newton]

> (add-hook 'after-change-major-mode-hook
>           (lambda nil
>             (local-set-key [return] nil)
>             (local-set-key [tab] nil)))

With this, if I start up Emacs and start to edit a file myfile.c,
I get this far:

main()
{
        int i

Pretend there's a tab in front of int. When I add a semicolon
to that line, it backindents it to column 2 (counting from 0),
which is what I meant about the local modes taking over.

If I edit a plain text file, e.g., myfile.txt or without an
extension, a tab indents me only four spaces. If a line
is indented more spaces, typing a tab on the line below
indents the next line to whatever column the previous
line is indented to.

Mind you, I think that's clever and wonderful, but what
my friend wants is whenever he presses a TAB key,
in whatever mode, and in whatever context, it skips
to the next 8-character tab stop, regardless of the mode,
the position of the line above, etc. And whenever he
hits RETURN, he wants the cursor to go to column zero
of the next line, period, no ifs ands or buts.

And I'm pretty sure that when he hits other keys, such
as semicolons, curly brackets, and other syntactically
significant characters within some given mode, he
wants it *not* to change the alignment of the current
line or any other line nearby.

One would think that would be pretty easy to do, but the
subtleties of various languages and accompanying modes
are so thoroughly built in that it's hard to escape them.
Most people consider that a Good Thing.