From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
To: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de>
Cc: 73709@debbugs.gnu.org, drew.adams@oracle.com
Subject: bug#73709: 29.4; Doc of `file-newer-than-file-p'
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2024 08:56:30 +0300 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <86y12vyygh.fsf@gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87cyk7trma.fsf@web.de> (message from Michael Heerdegen on Fri, 11 Oct 2024 02:23:09 +0200)
> From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de>
> Cc: 73709@debbugs.gnu.org, drew.adams@oracle.com
> Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2024 02:23:09 +0200
>
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>
> > > Apart from that: if it is hard or not practical to describe what the
> > > function returns in every case, we can instead try to describe major
> > > use cases.
> >
> > That'd mean a lot of text to write to describe what should be clear
> > enough, at least as far as Emacs is concerned. I don't think it's our
> > job to describe how the various filesystems work.
>
> This is not what I suggested. My suggestion was to tell something like
> "For example, this function is used to check whether a file should be
> restored from an auto-safe file, or needs to be recompiled". This is
> possible without describing how filesystems work, or how quantum
> chromodynamics work.
I'm okay with adding examples that people think might be useful, if
all we do is mention them without going into details too much. To me,
the 2 examples you mention sound almost trivial, but I nevertheless
won't object to add some short text with such examples, if they help
someone better understand the purpose of the function.
> > Very well, but please remember your opinions in this matter, because
> > if someone comes up asking for more details about "last modification
> > times" (perhaps even Drew himself, e.g. because someone asked some
> > question on SE), I will defer to you and Stefan to deal with the
> > fallout.
>
> When you say "[...] should be clear enough": are you sure that the
> misinterpretation as "file creation time" only can happen to me and to
> Drew - because we are exceptionally stupid Emacs users?
There's nothing stupid about that. Moreover, in some subtle
situations this will be the exact meaning of "file newer". My point
is different: that Lisp programmers should not think about this in
terms of file attributes returned by the 'stat' system call, but as a
higher-level abstraction.
> If not: do you have any better idea?
Better idea about what?
> And: Sure can you ask for my help, but, with all respect, please not in
> such a way, Eli.
Sigh. Why do you have to interpret what I write in the worst possible
way? It's possible that my dry humor is sometimes too dry, but
there's nothing other than dry humor in what I wrote above. I'd
expect everyone here would recognize that by now, but I guess not...
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2024-10-11 5:56 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 29+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2024-10-08 17:56 bug#73709: 29.4; Doc of `file-newer-than-file-p' Drew Adams via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-08 18:20 ` Eli Zaretskii
2024-10-08 18:40 ` Drew Adams via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-09 0:45 ` Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-09 13:31 ` Eli Zaretskii
2024-10-09 16:32 ` Drew Adams via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-09 23:21 ` Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-10 8:09 ` Eli Zaretskii
2024-10-10 11:08 ` Michael Albinus via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-11 0:23 ` Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-11 5:56 ` Eli Zaretskii [this message]
2024-10-12 0:31 ` Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-12 8:40 ` Eli Zaretskii
2024-10-12 22:48 ` Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-13 5:13 ` Eli Zaretskii
2024-10-13 14:51 ` Drew Adams via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-13 15:31 ` Eli Zaretskii
2024-10-13 17:01 ` Drew Adams via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-13 18:30 ` Eli Zaretskii
2024-10-13 22:23 ` Drew Adams via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-14 2:28 ` Eli Zaretskii
2024-10-15 1:10 ` Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-09 23:42 ` Stefan Kangas
2024-10-10 1:47 ` Drew Adams via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-10 8:26 ` Eli Zaretskii
2024-10-11 0:41 ` Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-11 6:03 ` Eli Zaretskii
2024-10-12 0:38 ` Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
2024-10-12 1:13 ` Drew Adams via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors
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