From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Luc Teirlinck Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: automatic anchors for definition commands. Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 23:23:17 -0600 (CST) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <200401100523.i0A5NHq15196@raven.dms.auburn.edu> References: <200401080020.i080KMw16314@f7.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1073713446 19765 80.91.224.253 (10 Jan 2004 05:44:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 05:44:06 +0000 (UTC) Cc: juri@jurta.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, karl@freefriends.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Sat Jan 10 06:44:03 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AfBul-0001pn-00 for ; Sat, 10 Jan 2004 06:44:03 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AfBuk-0004pC-00 for ; Sat, 10 Jan 2004 06:44:02 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AfCm9-0004SN-Me for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sat, 10 Jan 2004 01:39:13 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AfClS-0004Ez-66 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Jan 2004 01:38:30 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AfCZ1-0001bE-52 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Jan 2004 01:26:10 -0500 Original-Received: from [131.204.53.104] (helo=manatee.dms.auburn.edu) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AfCYT-0001RD-Ad; Sat, 10 Jan 2004 01:25:05 -0500 Original-Received: from raven.dms.auburn.edu (raven.dms.auburn.edu [131.204.53.29]) by manatee.dms.auburn.edu (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i0A5O4Kk019446; Fri, 9 Jan 2004 23:24:04 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: (from teirllm@localhost) by raven.dms.auburn.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) id i0A5NHq15196; Fri, 9 Jan 2004 23:23:17 -0600 (CST) X-Authentication-Warning: raven.dms.auburn.edu: teirllm set sender to teirllm@dms.auburn.edu using -f Original-To: rms@gnu.org In-reply-to: (message from Richard Stallman on Thu, 08 Jan 2004 08:38:49 -0500) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:19125 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:19125 Richard Stallman wrote: I prefer (D): continue handling this the way we do it now. That means using essentially no anchors. Prior to me making additional anchors, there were a total of six anchors in all .texi files included with the Emacs contribution: 4 in the Elisp manual, one in the Emacs manual and one in gnus.texi. (Result of grepping.) I have currently made 20 anchors and if I keep doing what I am doing now, that is about to explode into the hundreds. It is not hard to define teh anchors we actually want to use. There is a difference between what is hard if one makes two or three anchors and what is hard if one makes hundreds of anchors It might be ok...but still, is this change really necessary? The conclusion is not _necessarily_ that one should make automatic anchors for all definition commands. The conclusion may be to essentially make _no_ anchors to definition commands, maybe unless they are referred to from docstrings. That would reduce the number of new anchors to be made by _well_ over ninety percent, I am not convinced By Eli's reasons for not making anchors to definition commands. Essentially the reasons for that are empirical. I have twenty concrete examples in mind and Eli's arguments do not apply to them. However, to me. a more relevant argument, is the one I already mentioned before: definition commands are easy to find, because they stand out clearly, _especially_ in the printed manual. On the other hand, if you refer to the beginning of a paragraph that looks like all other paragraphs, providing the reader with the _exact_ page number in the printed manual and the exact spot in Info becomes more important. So maybe that is what I will start to do: not just see how many lines down the node the reference is in Info or how many pages off it is in the printed manual, but how difficult to actually _find_ it really is. That difference appears to be more important in the printed manual than in Info. If that is what we decide to do, then there is obviously no need for automatic anchors for definition commands. I would probably not revert most anchors to definition commands I already made, although I might revert some, because they might look just _too_ inconsistent with other similar cases. Sincerely, Luc.