bug#46627: [PATCH] Add new help command 'describe-command'

[Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>]

On 22.02.2021 17:18, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Cc: stefan@marxist.se, larsi@gnus.org, rms@gnu.org, 46627@debbugs.gnu.org
>> From: Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>
>> Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2021 01:46:50 +0200
>>
>> Saying "Emacs has these functions for doc discovery" is totally fine,
>> but I don't think we can stop there and ignore the current practice
>> among our users, or the experience from other editing environments.
> 
> We are not ignoring the current practices.  We are saying that people
> who want their discovery based on completion will find the solution in
> the completion alternatives we have already in Emacs, and if that
> still doesn't fit the bill, in the 3rd-party packages out there.

Do you have in mind some particular "completion alternative we have 
already" for 'describe-command'?

> I
> think Emacs provides, and will continue providing, ample
> infrastructure for such extensions, and that's enough, IMO.  There's
> no reason we should feel obliged to develop these features in Emacs.
> We will never be able to satisfy everyone there anyway.

I believe the argument is that we can improve the default experience by 
enacting some minor changes which correspond to what we know about how 
users discover new commands (or functions) or remember existing ones. 
And do that without pulling in major new functionality or features from 
third-party packages (which goes against the "lean core" concept which 
you probably know I prefer).

And I believe we shouldn't discount initiatives to improve the default 
experience's usability as attempts to "satisfy everyone". Which I also 
think we shouldn't do.

There were also suggestions for admittedly more invasive changes (like 
doing a bunch of renames in the standard library) which seem to have all 
been rejected by the leadership. I understand the reluctance to change 
things, but the argument about Emacs's extensibility and the 3rd party 
ecosystem wouldn't apply to it either because no matter how convenient 
and slick an external package might make completion experience, if the 
functions are irregularly named, that will remain a problem anyway.

So you might disagree on whether this feature is important. But I hope 
you can see how some aspects of the "whole new discovery framework" 
(which I'm saying isn't new) cannot be effectively enacted by 3rd party 
code without help from us here.