Re: Scratch buffer on either side of current buffer

[Christopher Dimech]

> Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2020 at 5:03 PM
> From: "Yuri Khan" <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com>
> To: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech@gmx.com>
> Cc: "help-gnu-emacs" <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>, "Jamie Beardslee" 
> <jdb@jamzattack.xyz>
> Subject: Re: Scratch buffer on either side of current buffer
>
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 at 22:43, Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> wrote:
> 
> > > > I would like only to set the size of the two scratch buffers to
> > > > be small by default (e.ge size 8), and my working buffer to stay
> > > > in as my working buffer and take the remaining space in the middle
> > > > of the screen.
> > >
> > > You’re sure you want what you asked for, and not something like
> > > (set-window-margins nil 8 8)?
> >
> > That was my hack.  The plan was that the result would be your one
> > liner.  Astonishing!
> 
> My point is that you should ask for the thing you need or want, not
> for the approach that first comes into your head. Inferring the want
> from the ask is not always easy.

You got that right!  Ok, so now I have got the new code below.
How can I set a default for optional WIDTH?

(defun abuffer (&optional width)
   "Accomodates window margins with WIDTH columns.
WIDTH is 5 by default, and can be set using the Universal Prefix
Argument \"C-u N M-x gungadin-buffer\"."
   (interactive)
   (set-window-margins nil width width) )