Re: setopt interactivecomments

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 04/17/2014 12:37 PM, Bart Schaefer wrote:

Bart:
> Well, *my* adoption of Linux is continually frustrated by exactly the
> opposite thinking, to wit, that every new release of something has to
> be based on the bloodiest edge and can disregard whatever came before.
Yup. There's that problem too.  This is by no means a simple issue and 
all perils considered, I quite
understand that things default to your way of thinking.
> Oh, look, a new version of jellymaker is out -- but the API is entirely
> different, so I'll have to try to find new versions of everything that
> uses it, and it requires the latest libsnozzberry which also has a new
> API, so I'll also have to try to replace everything else that depends
> on *that*, etc. etc. etc.
>
> Thanks, but no.
I hate that sort of thing too.  It's a question of separating the wheat 
from the chafe tho,
is it not?  On the one hand we have the kiddies with their half cooked 
'new' versions of
Jellymaker changing things willy-nilly, OTOH we have, in my opinion, a 
slightly too
conservative view with the shells. Excesses in one direction are not a 
good reason to
avoid sober changes in the other direction.
> } It was longstanding usage that we write with goose quill on parchment.
> } Let's forget about longstanding usage, break with all tradition, and
> } have zsh, as she comes out of the box, show folks what she can do.
>
> We [*] did try that back in around, oh, 1996 IIRC.  It was a mess.  It
> turns out that if turn on ALL the cool features by default, the result
> is even more confusing than having your backspace key not work.
Sure, efforts in this direction are dangerous, and I'd not suggest (even 
with my lack of
experience) that ALL of *anything* be turned on by default, but sheesh, 
can't we have
the backspace key by default? I'm sure there must be dozens of 'no risk' 
options that
virtually everyone wants and that come with no gottchas.  Me, I'm still 
so overwhelmed
by all the options that I don't even know what 90% of them do, and I'm 
probably missing
out on good stuff that I don't even know exists. If there was an option 
of having a
more souped up install, it might be educational to play with.
> What did eventually happen after the mess was cleaned up is that the
> zsh-newuser-install system got created.  It could use an update, but
> is intended to walk you through enabling the stuff that you're most
> likely to want.
Sounds exactly right. I seem to have missed it.
> [*] I use the term "we" loosely because I personally quit working on zsh
> for a couple of years until sanity had been restored.
Well, sanity matters. I take a rather conservative view  on most things 
myself, but at the
same time, I think a few things are now so bedrock standard that we can 
safely part with
the traditions of 20 years ago on some issues. What, really, would break 
if the backspace
was enabled by default? What would break if interactive comments was on 
by default? Who
would complain? Does anyone on Earth really not want command recall?