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: What's missing in ELisp that makes people want to use cl-lib? Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2023 15:17:04 +0200 Message-ID: <83leb5ychb.fsf@gnu.org> References: <25924.21015.19614.951576@orion.rgrjr.com> <87bkc4jpja.fsf@dataswamp.org> <8a7362da-3cc4-221c-7b8a-a9918677adff@gutov.dev> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="15465"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: acm@muc.de, dmitry@gutov.dev, gerd.moellmann@gmail.com, bjorn.bidar@thaodan.de, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: =?utf-8?B?Sm/Do28gVMOhdm9yYQ==?= Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Nov 10 14:18:14 2023 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 1r1ROo-0003pz-ER for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 10 Nov 2023 14:18:14 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1r1ROF-0000aZ-UV; Fri, 10 Nov 2023 08:17:41 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1r1RNn-0000PI-Ct for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Nov 2023 08:17:18 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1r1RNl-0000qz-UN; Fri, 10 Nov 2023 08:17:10 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=MIME-version:References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From: Date; bh=oxwYVEx3yFi388STg1HBAST6GI7qTOpif8I6FiThq8w=; b=ggFLLisLCRFWFkGn92Z9 g4QQ3Nph/NxWb00FsTyOLTelbwVcDnTecLxC3e7i6bEiH6WaQ59ySKU0UU/8y8Kei/LYuhzt/OyrU oticE4TSoD/GzLeXt1upIoPfW6ulChT4dDXVrSVcfc8nuuFNGMUOJ0s3DK/B8jPP4Pv3qM7Z7Vx8Q C9vtpcJrioaurcwsP6uUMqJyboXlnHjqRYW7JXQHwjhm+0ykdrUPv29FVYohX+eNESIruKmMj83RL jj0xnGDM7iCgIVMnqNbAnZ3egsxzv17Kpl9ELtgUJkaYeWp14tuFR5R4UTcDKZe8mO99kGnlWfmpU 8LxAs62VuCEP8w==; In-Reply-To: (message from =?utf-8?B?Sm/Do28gVMOhdm9yYQ==?= on Fri, 10 Nov 2023 12:53:10 +0000) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:312486 Archived-At: > From: João Távora > Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2023 12:53:10 +0000 > Cc: Dmitry Gutov , > Gerd Möllmann , > Björn Bidar , emacs-devel@gnu.org > > > cl-lib uses itself, and needs debugging too. Debugging code that uses > > abstractions often requires penetrating these abstractions and checking > > their innards. > > Well, no. I don't go read OS source code whenever I have doubts > about how to use a system call or how to read a given piece of > code that uses that system call, I read the manual page for the system > call itself. This misses the point which I think Alan wanted to make. The point is that when some cl-lib function seems to return an unexpected result, one needs to debug that function. And since Edebug has only rudimentary and frequently completely inadequate support for debugging cl-lib abstractions, one must then attempt at analyzing and understanding those abstractions as part of debugging. And if you never had such moments when some OS syscall produced an unexpected result and the man pages failed to explain why, then I guess you have yet a few TIL situations in your future ;-) > Just as I don't pull up a magnifying glass to check if > my CPU's transistors are doing what they should, I trust the data sheet > describing the instructions. Strawmen aside, this flies in the face of one of the great advantages of working with Free Software: if you want and need to, you can find out what happens on any level, including the lowest level of OS system calls. Trying to laugh it away is a non-starter around here.