Re: general-purpose.el - a general-forms-resource-utility

[Andreas Roehler <andreas.roehler@easy-emacs.de>]

Thien-Thi Nguyen schrieb:
> Andreas Roehler <andreas.roehler@easy-emacs.de> writes:
>
>   
>> Why not think about a way to relate and reflect these different
>> - already exiting and delivered - definitions?
>>     
>
> probably this has already been thought about.  see, for example:
>
> http://www.norvig.com/paip/unify.lisp
> http://www.norvig.com/paip/README.html
>
> a related idea is to unify byte-code -- that would be cool.
>
> thi
>   

Thanks a lot! That's real interesting stuff there.

Let me say nonetheless that `unification' might be a
result--and certainly will be in some cases--but not
the primary goal of the project - that's wider, a more
general one.

If we agree that scattered general-purpose-functions
exist, one of the interesting questions is: Why?

What is the situation of the developer while writing
the fourth or fifth string-strip function?

Might be that

- none of the existing are suitable

- he ignores the other one.

Both seems possible, also in combination.

As big as the sources are I doubt that someone will
claim to know everything.

Also the question of suitability is no easy one -
following the discussion around string-strip these days
I don't see a way of automatized unification.

In any case it would help a lot if we could - while
writing - give some keyword, for example `correct user
input' and get a list of possible forms.

(That's the case already with `apropos' somehow, that's
not a new idea as such, so I will also examine
`apropos' in this context.)


__
Andreas Roehler