Re: Adding support for xref jumping to headers/interfaces

[Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev>]

On 28/11/2023 17:02, João Távora wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 28, 2023 at 12:45 PM Dmitry Gutov<dmitry@gutov.dev>  wrote:
> 
>> That's a good practice, and it works (and mitigates the issues) until we
>> need to change the underlying function, for some reasons or other. In
>> that sense, having the expansion use private functions (with "--" in the
>> name) doesn't do much because those cannot be safely renamed, extended,
>> etc. Unlike when they're called by a public function.
> Sorry, that completely unspecified and vague scenario is irrelevant
> in both theory and practice.  Why would you need to rename them?
> They're internal functions: noone else but you needs to know or care
> about them.

Being able to rename, or change arguments, or split into several, or 
severely rework, are all benefits of using internal functions, which are 
thus taken away.

So essentially we have to choose stable public function(s) instead, no 
matter if they have "--" in the name. Which is what we need to do first.

> This technique doesn't suffer from any other problem
> a function interface wouldn't have as well.  Can't tell why you're
> trying to poke holes in such a well known and widely used Lisp
> technique, but I must be off.

Like you said, it's a tangent, so maybe split off a separate thread if 
you want to continue.