branch: master commit bfdb6403ea77f285f381f76d179fd5d105e39b46 Author: Ian Dunn <du...@gnu.org> Commit: Ian Dunn <du...@gnu.org>
Updated pabbrev comparison * paced.org (pabbrev): Clarify difficulty with working with files that aren't always open. --- paced.org | 27 +++++++++++++-------------- 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-) diff --git a/paced.org b/paced.org index 78bef8b..3b5abb4 100644 --- a/paced.org +++ b/paced.org @@ -56,23 +56,22 @@ completion can be customized. There are a few Emacs packages that have similar goals to paced, and provided some of the inspiration and motivation behind it. *** pabbrev -The [[https://github.com/phillord/pabbrev][pabbrev]] package by Phillip Lord scans text of the current buffer while Emacs -is idle and presents the user with the most common completions. +The [[https://github.com/phillord/pabbrev][pabbrev]] package by Phillip Lord automatically scans text of the current +buffer while Emacs is idle and presents the user with the most common +completions. One of the major downsides to pabbrev is that the data it collects doesn't persist between Emacs sessions. For a few files that are always open, such as -org agenda files, pabbrev works great. For files that aren't always open, like -prose or source files, you've got to retrain pabbrev every time you restart -Emacs. - -The benefit of pabbrev dies down if the suggested word isn't the one you need. -Then you've still got to search through a list of suggestions, which takes away -from typing. - -That's not to say that pabbrev is all bad. It keeps up-to-date usage and prefix -hashes of all buffers of the same mode, and scanning, or "scavenging", blends -seamlessly into the background. Completion is just a hash table lookup, so it -can handle completion in microseconds. +org agenda files, pabbrev works great. If you want to train it from a few files +that aren't always open, you'll have to open each file and retrain pabbrev from +that file. And you'll have to do this every time you restart Emacs. + +It keeps up-to-date usage and prefix hashes of all buffers of the same mode, and +scanning, or "scavenging", blends seamlessly into the background. Completion is +just a hash table lookup, so it can handle completion in microseconds. There's +also no setup required; it will start working right away. The downside to this +is that dictionaries aren't flexible; each dictionary corresponds to a major +mode, and there's no way to change that. *** predictive The [[https://www.dr-qubit.org/predictive.html][predictive]] package by Toby Cubitt scans text of the current buffer on user command. The usage data is stored in a dictionary, which can then be saved to a