From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: constant `e' Date: 10 Feb 2007 19:05:20 +0100 Message-ID: <20070210191945.GA1266@muc.de> References: <87ireah6ia.fsf@wigwam.brockman.se> <854ppu8k1l.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <87y7n6fdod.fsf@wigwam.brockman.se> <20070210135753.GB885@muc.de> <87ireaf5f1.fsf@wigwam.brockman.se> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1171130756 18630 80.91.229.12 (10 Feb 2007 18:05:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 18:05:56 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Daniel Brockman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Feb 10 19:05:46 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HFwbQ-0007Ve-Tz for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 10 Feb 2007 19:05:37 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HFwbQ-0001Vo-GP for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:05:36 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1HFwbE-0001VL-9T for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:05:24 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1HFwbD-0001V9-SA for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:05:24 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HFwbD-0001V6-MC for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:05:23 -0500 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1] helo=mail.muc.de) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA:32) (Exim 4.52) id 1HFwbD-0003MB-0q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:05:23 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 79555 invoked by uid 3782); 10 Feb 2007 18:05:20 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p54A3D1B9.dip.t-dialin.net [84.163.209.185]) by colin2.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Sat, 10 Feb 2007 19:05:18 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 2407 invoked by uid 1000); 10 Feb 2007 19:19:45 -0000 Original-Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 19:19:45 +0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87ireaf5f1.fsf@wigwam.brockman.se> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.5 (Fettercairn) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-kernel: FreeBSD 4.6-4.9 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:66225 Archived-At: Hi, Daniel! On Sat, Feb 10, 2007 at 03:33:54PM +0100, Daniel Brockman wrote: > Alan Mackenzie writes: [ .... ] > > When I see `(not (null n))', it takes extra effort mentally to filter > > out what, to me, is just noise. > Hm! That's interesting. It's amazing how differently different hackers see things, even here on emacs-devel. > The concept of `non-nil' is very basic to me, so I do not have to > filter anything out of `(not (null ...))', because it is already > phrased the way I think about it. The concept of `non-nil' is so basic to me that I don't see any need to express it explicitly. ;-) > >> Take a look at this code: [ .... ] > > But it feels like I'm being talked down to - the programmer is > > saying, in effect "you probably don't understand Lisp very well, so > > I'll make it very very clear". > I had no idea some people read it like that. > Do you feel similarily talked down to when you see C code > like the following? > for (node = list->first; node != NULL; node = node->next) > process (node); A little, but not that much. What gets my goat up is when natural idiomatic C, something like this: while (i--) has to be recoded, at the behest of company "coding standards", like this: while (CurrentFooIndex > 0) { CurrentFooIndex-- ; } , supposedly to make it "more readable" and "more maintainable". Such coding standards give remarkably little justification for their rules. They are pretty much always ignored anyway, so they don't do too much harm. [By contrast, the GNU coding rules are pretty sensible, if not to everybody's taste.] However, I rarely change anything "long-winded" in anybody else's code. It creates bad feeling for no objective benefit. > -- > Daniel Brockman -- Alan Mackenzie (Ittersbach, Germany).