Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:22:38 -0700 From: "Evan Dower" <evantd@hotmail.com> To: cswiger@mac.com, brooks@one-eyed-alien.net Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: suggestion for /usr/src/UPDATING Message-ID: <BAY8-F35A91E9GQvnbE0002204d@hotmail.com>
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This seems to me like a very good idea. Some people are very accustomed to the current defaults. They can just leave things alone. I personally have to think about which key to press, so I might change the keys to something more suitable to me. Perhaps an /etc/mergemaster.conf is in order or any other mechanism for allowing key (or more accurately character) customization. I see no reason not to let everybody win. In fact, I'd be perfectly happy if you couldn't change the default keys but could only add to them. That is, r and l would always work, but you could configure it so that other letters/keys would also have the same functions. Just a thought and an opinion, -- Evan Dower Undergraduate, Computer Science University of Washington Public key: http://students.washington.edu/evantd/pgp-pub-key.txt Key fingerprint = D321 FA24 4BDA F82D 53A9 5B27 7D15 5A4F 033F 887D >From: Charles Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> >To: Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net> >CC: freebsd-current@freebsd.org >Subject: Re: suggestion for /usr/src/UPDATING >Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:08:55 -0400 > >On Aug 31, 2004, at 4:31 PM, Brooks Davis wrote: >>>I am content to let any interested committer make that decision, but I >>>ask that whoever first go through a trial mergemaster session using >>>'1' & '2' as the keys. 'q' and 'e' are right there, and I found the >>>improvement compared to using 'l' & 'r' immediately obvious and more >>>intuitive. >> >>I agree the current default is confusing and counterintuitive, at least >>at first. That's not the point. The point is that it's been that way >>for ages and changing it would gratuitously screw all the users who have >>adapted to it. There's no reason why you couldn't preserve the old >>behavior by default and in fact I'd request a back out of any commit >>that didn't. I don't opposes adding a second set of keys such as 1 and >>2, just breaking the old behavior. > >I am more interested in permitting users to choose which keys they prefer >to use than I am in arguing what should be the default behavior of sdiff. > >It seems likely that if I'd commented out line 10 of my diff rather than >line 9, I'd be dodging brickbats from the other side, but what the hell, >the diff is the way it is because I wanted to test and see whether the >changes actually made a noticable difference in usability. > >I came to a conclusion, but the code I submitted is more friendly about >supporting individual opinions than the prior code, and your suggestion to >support multiple keys for choosing left and right also sounds like a good >idea-- probably more doable if one started with my changes. > >-- >-Chuck > >PS: I was going to ask, Brooks, whether you could describe a process you'd >tolerate for changing the default behavior of a program with unreasonable >defaults? > >_______________________________________________ >freebsd-current@freebsd.org mailing list >http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current >To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" _________________________________________________________________ Don’t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
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