unofficial mirror of emacs-devel@gnu.org 
 help / color / mirror / code / Atom feed
From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
To: <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
Subject: unlispification considered harmful - turn off custom-unlispify-tag-names by default
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 16:24:58 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <002801c954dd$9320dd80$0200a8c0@us.oracle.com> (raw)

I don't think unlispification is a good thing for users. The default value of
`custom-unlispify-tag-names' should be nil.

Do you really think that this:

 Read Buffer Completion Ignore Case: Show Value

is more readable, even to a non-Lispian, than this?

 read-buffer-completion-ignore-case: Show Value

I don't think so. The second makes it clear that this is a variable name (or a
face name). The first is just baroque obfuscation, IMO. (The name could be
`custom-obfuscate-tag-names'.)

Emacs users are used to seeing variable names, function names, and so on - think
of `apropos' output. We don't use "unlispified" names there, and we shouldn't
use them here either. This almost insults users, IMO - it doesn't help them.
They should be able to expect the same names everywhere.

Users use `M-x customize-option', not just the menubar menu, to get to Customize
buffers in the first place. And that command requires you to input an option
name in "lispified" format. Once you're in, obfuscation takes over. If you can
handle using the Lisp name to get in, then you can handle seeing it on the
inside too.

If `custom-unlispify-tag-names' is nil, then you can use, in Customize, `C-h v',
`find-variable', and other commands that pick up the variable name as a default.
Not so if it is t. (Yes, doc strings sometimes give more info than the text
shown in Customize - `read-buffer-completion-ignore-case' is a case in point.)

Less obviously, the same argument can be made for
`custom-unlispify-menu-entries'. The two should go together, so that you see the
same representation everywhere.

These options should really just be removed, IMO, but a first step would be to
give them a value of nil.





             reply	other threads:[~2008-12-03  0:24 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2008-12-03  0:24 Drew Adams [this message]
2008-12-03  1:06 ` unlispification considered harmful - turn off custom-unlispify-tag-names by default Glenn Morris

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='002801c954dd$9320dd80$0200a8c0@us.oracle.com' \
    --to=drew.adams@oracle.com \
    --cc=emacs-devel@gnu.org \
    /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).