From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.bugs Subject: bug#7291: 24.0.50; `non-essential' is incomprehensible Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:30:30 -0700 Message-ID: <9499566E643B466092A98013C6826011@us.oracle.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1288220004 24441 80.91.229.12 (27 Oct 2010 22:53:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 22:53:24 +0000 (UTC) To: 7291@debbugs.gnu.org Original-X-From: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Oct 28 00:53:23 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PBEry-0003Ld-1p for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:53:22 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:58630 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PBEkN-00074b-Gk for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; 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Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:30:28 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 Thread-Index: Act2Jo9Qe4AnPn5UT5Ob2KvCdXUU1w== X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5994 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: debbugs-submit@debbugs.gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.11 Precedence: list Resent-Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:29:02 -0400 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org List-Id: "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.bugs:41171 Archived-At: Variable `non-essential' was introduced in Emacs 24. The name is bad - doesn't say anything. Non-essential wrt what? The doc is bad: "Whether the currently executing code is performing an essential task. This variable should be non-nil only when running code which should not disturb the user. E.g. it can be used to prevent Tramp from prompting the user for a password when we are simply scanning a set of files in the background or displaying possible completions before the user even asked for it." So does nil mean the code is performing an essential task? Or does non-nil mean that? What's an "essential task"? A task that should disturb the user (because it is important) or a task that should not disturb the user? What does "code which should not disturb the user" even mean? Sounds like this var should almost always be non-nil. But in fact it is almost always nil. So does that mean that almost all Emacs code SHOULD disturb the user? Is the doc backwards maybe? If not, then maybe the variable is named backwards: should it be `essential'? I cannot understand this. What does it really mean? Grepping the source code shows that this varis used only in `tramp-completion-mode-p' (so why isn't it called `tramp-non-essential...'?). If this is non-nil, that predicate returns non-nil, which indicates what? It supposedly indicates "whether method / user name / host name completion is active". Huh? How is anyone supposed to understand this? So let's look at where this is bound to non-nil... In icomplete.el, during `icomplete-completions'. No comment in the code. No clue as to why this code should be considered "non-essential" for Tramp. Why would icompleting necessarily indicate that "method / user name / host name completion is active" (whatever that might mean)? The only other place this is bound is in ido.el. Same questions apply. Please clean this up. It's incomprehensible. Presumably, this variable needs to be known to users who write Lisp code. If it is needed in `icomplete-completions' and for ido file-name completion then why wouldn't it also be needed in user code that does something similar (for some unknown meaning of "similar"). There are lots of 3rd-party libraries that define completion code. Why wouldn't they need to do something similar to what icomplete and ido do? How would a Lisp library writer know whether to do anything or what to do? If this variable is this important and global (no `tramp-' prefix) then it should be documented in the Elisp manual. In GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2010-10-25 on 3249CTO Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600 configured using `configure --with-gcc (4.4) --no-opt --cflags -Ic:/imagesupport/include'