unofficial mirror of bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org 
 help / color / mirror / code / Atom feed
From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
Cc: "55408@debbugs.gnu.org" <55408@debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: bug#55408: Explain the word "interactively" in the Emacs Manual
Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 15:12:38 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <SJ0PR10MB5488CBFC59E98071A8975DB8F3CC9@SJ0PR10MB5488.namprd10.prod.outlook.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <83k0anj5ry.fsf@gnu.org>

> We use this style in many doc strings.  I'd consider it a standard
> Emacs language of describing what happens in interactive invocations,
> and presume that any Emacs user knows only too well what it means.
> If we change our style, we'd have to change it in many places,
> including the manual.

I happen to agree with that, generally.  It's part
of what I meant by:

  There's maybe no magic bullet here: something short
  and sweet that can be repeated in most doc strings,
  but that also gets across everything about this:
  ...

> > > The very first line presented in the *Help* buffer says:
> > >   package-update-all is an interactive compiled Lisp function in
> > >   ‘package.el’.            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >
> > I think it would probably be more helpful if that line said "a
> > command" instead of "an interactive compiled Lisp function".
> 
> It is both a command and a function.  Every command can be also
> invoked non-interactively.  That is what that sentence says, and has
> been saying since day one.

Agreed.  The "problem" is that the meaning might
not be clear to some (many?) users consulting a
doc string.

Whether it's worth trying to solve that problem,
with the attendant bother you mention (changing
lots of doc strings), and with the difficulty of
coming up with a short-and-sweet-and-clear fix,
which I mention, is another question.

IMO, things are pretty good already.  But yeah,
it's likely a bit of a problem, esp. for newbies.

  reply	other threads:[~2022-05-15 15:12 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2022-05-14  8:16 bug#55408: Explain the word "interactively" in the Emacs Manual Stefan Kangas
2022-05-14  8:46 ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-05-15 12:20   ` Stefan Kangas
2022-05-15 13:15     ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-05-15 15:12       ` Drew Adams [this message]
2022-05-15 13:34     ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2022-05-15 15:00       ` Stefan Kangas
2022-05-15 15:07     ` Drew Adams

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

  List information: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=SJ0PR10MB5488CBFC59E98071A8975DB8F3CC9@SJ0PR10MB5488.namprd10.prod.outlook.com \
    --to=drew.adams@oracle.com \
    --cc=55408@debbugs.gnu.org \
    --cc=eliz@gnu.org \
    --cc=stefan@marxist.se \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox

	https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).