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From: Martin Buchholz <mrb@Eng.Sun.COM>
To: Kyle Jones <kyle_jones@wonderworks.com>
Cc: XEmacs Beta Test <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>
Subject: (modify-syntax-entry ?_ "w")
In-Reply-To: <QQcqce20513.199705181811@crystal.WonderWorks.COM>
References: <199705181327.GAA09948@xemacs.eng.sun.com>
	<QQcqce20513.199705181811@crystal.WonderWorks.COM>
X-Mailer: VM 6.31 under 20.2 XEmacs Lucid
Reply-To: Martin Buchholz <mrb@Eng.Sun.COM>

>>>>> "Kyle" == Kyle Jones <kyle_jones@wonderworks.com> writes:

Kyle> Martin Buchholz writes:
>> This is related to the question of whether editing modes should bind
>> delete/backspace.  I feel it's evil for almost all modes to change the
>> syntax of ?_ to "w", since it's not consistent with other modes.
>> 
>> I propose that ksh-mode and cperl-mode, and probably fortan.el and
>> simula.el, be modified to do
>> 
>> (modify-syntax-entry ?_ "_")

Kyle> To argue from the other side, there are times when M-d does too
Kyle> little and C-M-k does too much.  (modify-syntax-entry ?_ "w") is
Kyle> a compromise between the two; all you have to do change your
Kyle> mental definition of a word a little bit.  A kill-identifier
Kyle> command is what the programmer is after, I think.


We should probably have commands to kill words, identifiers, and
sexp's.  But we shouldn't have some modes assign M-d to kill-word,
while assign M-d to kill-identifier.

BTW, if point is at the beginning of an identifier, shouldn't
kill-sexp *always* kill precisely the identifier, as desired?  It's
hard to get into the habit of using kill-sexp, but it might be a good
habit to acquire.  I'll personally bind kill-sexp to a more accessible
key binding, and make a conscious effort to use kill-sexp more heavily.

Martin

