Re: PROPOSAL: Repurpose one key and reserve it for third-party packages

[Gregory Heytings]

> > The problem of what you propose is that, even if it were possible 
> > (AFAIU it isn't, given Emacs' key binding conventions), it would be a 
> > very limited solution: there are only 26 keys reserved for users. Okay, 
> > 52, if you count capital letters.
>
> Wait, if a key were designated, you would have the same issue? But even 
> then, you can bind a key to a sub-map, you can rebind exiting keys if a 
> package improves on an existing key and you could suggest more than one 
> key.

No, with one control key you have all characters (not just letters, also 
digits and symbols), plus all C-something, plus all M-something, plus 
C-M-something.  With one control key and its corrsponding meta key you 
multiply that number by two.

> > It's what most users expect.  apt install elpa-magit, C-x g, and voilà: 
> > Magit works.
>
> How do you come to this conclusion?

It's what Magit (and other similar packages) do.  The presupposition of 
the proposal is that such packages know their users.

> > BTW, Emacs already does "behind-your-back" customizations, and doesn't 
> > ask you any questions for them.  It provides sensible defaults, which 
> > work in most cases, and which you can change if need be.
>
> I don't get your point here. Are you saying "default Emacs" is a 
> "behind-your-back customization"?

No, I mean that installing packages already does some "behind-your-back" 
customizations, for example by modifying auto-mode-alist.  There are cases 
when such modifications do not what some particular user would expect; as 
someone mentioned, a package for Perl who would override the setting of a 
package for Prolog because both use the .pl extension.