RE: Major and minor modes

[Phillip Lord]

On Wed, June 14, 2017 1:49 am, Drew Adams wrote:
> A minor mode can be buffer-specific (local) or not (global).
> Minor-mode key bindings override major-mode key bindings.
> A minor mode can do anything at all.  What it does need not
> be specific for the content of any particular buffer, and hence for any
> particular major mode.


I have thought for a long time that there are two forms of minor mode
which should be handled differently. Originally minor modes were clearly
meant to be global (auto-fill, line-number mode that sort of thing). But
there are lots of "single major mode" minor modes. Examples would be some
of the electric minor modes, things like Slime, CIDER or ensime which are
all minor modes more or less specific.

My own feeling is that minor modes have poor usability for these purposes.

Phil