From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2020 09:56:14 +0300 Message-ID: <83a6zyk4tt.fsf@gnu.org> References: <20200712184908.13140.5739@vcs0.savannah.gnu.org> <20200712184909.BBC61209B1@vcs0.savannah.gnu.org> <7bf4d6ef-c0ec-43dc-ad5d-f6e81422ad90@yandex.ru> <83zh84m5ws.fsf@gnu.org> <3dd1c224-69b2-40af-5b2e-43a310253632@yandex.ru> <83tuybmtxs.fsf@gnu.org> <859f594b-1343-6d26-e1ac-7157c44eb56c@yandex.ru> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="35832"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Dmitry Gutov Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Jul 17 08:56:58 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1jwKIk-0009CU-3O for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 17 Jul 2020 08:56:58 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55112 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jwKIj-0003lF-2A for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 17 Jul 2020 02:56:57 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:41960) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jwKIG-0003Ky-L1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 17 Jul 2020 02:56:28 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:36623) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jwKIG-0000QS-CH; Fri, 17 Jul 2020 02:56:28 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=3775 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1jwKIF-0007Nn-P6; Fri, 17 Jul 2020 02:56:28 -0400 In-Reply-To: <859f594b-1343-6d26-e1ac-7157c44eb56c@yandex.ru> (message from Dmitry Gutov on Fri, 17 Jul 2020 01:40:59 +0300) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:253002 Archived-At: > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org > From: Dmitry Gutov > Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2020 01:40:59 +0300 > > > Whether one agrees with your coding style or not, the difficulties it > > presents to documenting our code are real, and I suggest that you > > consider this disadvantage seriously, because it basically flies in > > the face of long-standing traditions of Emacs self-documenting > > features. > > We could discuss alternative implementation approaches, but I think you > will find none will fit the basic requirements of these packages. > > Or at least that the possible options will require the client to treat > the values as "opaque" exactly the same way. Basically, you are saying that in your opinion this is as it should be, and cannot be helped. Which I think is against long-time Emacs tradition for documenting its interfaces, and by that facilitating extensibility. It is IMO wrong to fill Emacs application levels with opaque objects which cannot be usefully described; they should be a rare exception, but definitely not the rule. Therefore, we will most probably have many disputes in the future on related issues which all boil down to this basic disagreement. I wonder who else around here agrees with you on this, and invite people who have an opinion to please speak up. I've changed the Subject to make it more descriptive.