> I was also extremely bothered by the fact that the cursor cannot live outside the current viewport and scrolling the buffer would drag the cursor as well.
I can see how that would be annoying. I can also see why the developers might not have noticed. When I'm in Emacs, I tend to navigate using the keyboard, which means I scroll by moving the cursor and dragging the viewport with it.
So they probably added the ability to scroll without moving the cursor so Emacs would have the feature. But if they never really used it, they wouldn't have noticed the shortcomings in their implementation.
Sorry for the rambling, not sure if I really had a point to make ;)
If well configured, mouse support can be handful when navigating code. There is a niche editor called Acme[1] that is almost "mouse-only", where even Return won't put you in the next line :)
When using Emacs, my workflow was very keyboard-centric, but sometimes navigation was a pain (even with tags and whatnot).
I can see how that would be annoying. I can also see why the developers might not have noticed. When I'm in Emacs, I tend to navigate using the keyboard, which means I scroll by moving the cursor and dragging the viewport with it.
So they probably added the ability to scroll without moving the cursor so Emacs would have the feature. But if they never really used it, they wouldn't have noticed the shortcomings in their implementation.
Sorry for the rambling, not sure if I really had a point to make ;)