From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.ciao.gmane.io!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [ELPA] New package: transient Date: Sat, 02 May 2020 12:05:22 +0300 Message-ID: <83sggiu2p9.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87368npxw4.fsf@bernoul.li> <87v9ljo5d0.fsf@bernoul.li> <87ftcnxu5m.fsf@bernoul.li> <83y2qezlpd.fsf@gnu.org> <83tv12zjx1.fsf@gnu.org> <20200429101755.GF24737@tuxteam.de> <838sicw4do.fsf@gnu.org> <83zhaqu89z.fsf@gnu.org> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="ciao.gmane.io:159.69.161.202"; logging-data="1189"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: tomas@tuxteam.de, rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Philippe Vaucher Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sat May 02 11:06:20 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 1jUo6F-0000Cg-DF for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sat, 02 May 2020 11:06:19 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51754 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jUo6E-0004L7-GW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sat, 02 May 2020 05:06:18 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:54088) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jUo5f-0003kF-85 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 02 May 2020 05:05:44 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:53886) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jUo5e-0000t7-C4; Sat, 02 May 2020 05:05:42 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=1086 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1jUo5T-0006Nf-Ac; Sat, 02 May 2020 05:05:31 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from Philippe Vaucher on Sat, 2 May 2020 10:09:36 +0200) 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:248387 Archived-At: > From: Philippe Vaucher > Date: Sat, 2 May 2020 10:09:36 +0200 > Cc: Richard Stallman , tomas@tuxteam.de, Emacs developers > > > Why does it fail to do the job? > > It doesn't fail, but there are evidently users who want to have that > information without using the documentation features of Emacs, so any > solution based on C-h is not acceptable to them. > > While there might be some users who think that way, my workflow is mainly to use `C-h f` to find the help of > the function I'm interested in. This is where not properly namespaced libraries are hurting me. > > `C-h d` or `apropos` is plan B, and then I have to filter what is relevant and not, and also because the result > set of `C-h d` is so big scrolling inside my Emacs becomes sluggish, which is not pleasant. So usually a this > point I go online and search, and fall on Xah-Lee's page, EmacsWiki, or stackoverflow. If I may: your strategy is sub-optimal. When looking for a function whose name you don't know, the first place to look is in the ELisp manual. Thus, for finding functions that deal with alists, the first thing to try is "i alist RET" in the ELisp manual. Here "alist" is not a part of a function's name, it's a topic which you are looking for. That is much more efficient than the sequence you described above, because we take special care of having meaningful topics in the indices of the manual, precisely to help in such situations. (And my advice is to always have the ELisp manual shown in some frame on your display, so that you don't even need to type "C-h i" etc. to get to it.) If you know _something_ about the function's name, then constructing a proper regexp from what you know and using "C-u C-h a" might also be efficient enough, especially if you cannot come up with a topic specific enough to give to Info's 'i' command. But at this point I'm completely confused about your central argument, because my original mentioning of "C-h d" was regarded as missing the point, and you objected to the very idea of searching the documentation. Quote: > I think "C-h d alist RET" is your friend. > > You miss the central point of my argument. The problem is not that the doc is hard to find, it's that I *have* to find it to know which are the related functions. > > It is much easier for the mind to think in terms of namespaces, here are examples from other languages: So now I'm no confused because my conclusion from the above was that you don't want to use the documentation features, but you now evidently disagreed with that conclusion. Sorry.