Re: over-engineered (and under-standardized) inferior interfaces

[Jorgen Schaefer <forcer@forcix.cx>]

On Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:55:08 +0100
phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk (Phillip Lord) wrote:

> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
> >> So I'd suggest using C-c C-c for a new
> >> prog-proc-send-region-or-buffer.
> >
> > I think "send the current buffer" is not good enough, except for
> > those rare systems where a single file is all you need.
> 
> There is a subtly here, I think, depending on whether "send current
> buffer" really sends the current buffer, or loads the file.
> 
> For example, clojure-cider binds C-c C-r to cider-eval-region, while
> C-c C-k is cider-load-current-buffer (which actually loads the file
> of the buffer). It doesn't actually have a keybinding for
> cider-eval-buffer (other than mark-whole-buffer, cider-eval-region)
> because this nearly always gives inferior (sorry) results.

Indeed. Python is similar, in that it actually would not work in just
sending the buffer or even the region (because interactively, empty
lines terminate a block) - the python mode creates a temporary file in
either case and loads that in the interactive process.

So the semantics are quite regularly not "use the current buffer/region
as input", but rather "update the interactive process with stuff from
the current buffer/file/region in whatever fashion that fits".

Jorgen