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: Mon, 04 May 2020 16:51:53 +0300 Message-ID: <83tv0volja.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87368npxw4.fsf@bernoul.li> <83y2qezlpd.fsf@gnu.org> <83tv12zjx1.fsf@gnu.org> <20200429101755.GF24737@tuxteam.de> <838sicw4do.fsf@gnu.org> <83zhaqu89z.fsf@gnu.org> <83sggiu2p9.fsf@gnu.org> <83r1w2s9wi.fsf@gnu.org> <83v9leqmss.fsf@gnu.org> <83zhapoz63.fsf@gnu.org> <0a13f7e1-61c7-1e78-22bc-a27c15c269e7@yandex.ru> <83h7wxotix.fsf@gnu.org> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="ciao.gmane.io:159.69.161.202"; logging-data="96865"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: tomas@tuxteam.de, dgutov@yandex.ru, rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Mon May 04 15:52:46 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 1jVbWX-000P6n-UE for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 04 May 2020 15:52:45 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:44918 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jVbWW-0006Zw-H1 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 04 May 2020 09:52:44 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:40902) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jVbVu-0005ur-M7 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 04 May 2020 09:52:06 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:58042) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jVbVt-00045e-Dd; Mon, 04 May 2020 09:52:05 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=2536 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1jVbVl-0005Bc-5t; Mon, 04 May 2020 09:51:57 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from Stefan Monnier on Sun, 03 May 2020 17:04:21 -0400) 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:248816 Archived-At: > From: Stefan Monnier > Date: Sun, 03 May 2020 17:04:21 -0400 > Cc: tomas@tuxteam.de, emacs-devel@gnu.org, rms@gnu.org, > Dmitry Gutov > > > And I don't see what's wrong with that. I saw what I thought was the > > wrong tool for the job, so I suggested to use a better tool. > > I get the impression that you misunderstand what is "the job". > > >From where I stand, documentation can help reduce the pain of > inconsistent naming, but it doesn't solve the underlying problem, so the > tools you suggest are "the wrong tools" ;-) The "job" is discoverability. A reminder how this started: Philippe Vaucher in https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2020-04/msg01917.html: > > Overall I think it's a shame that the Emacs api wasn't designed with discoverability/consistency in mind > > Would you mind elaborate on this deficiency? I don't think I quite > understand the complaint. > > > It's hard to really criticize because Emacs was designed ages ago. > > My point is simply this one: when I look at https://github.com/magnars/dash.el, https://github.com/NicolasPetton/seq.el or https://github.com/magnars/s.el I can immediately understand how the library works and how to achieve things. I can also easily use `C-h f` to find about the function I want. > > In Emacs, parts of it are designed following the same principle, but a lot of it isn't: > > https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Association-Lists.html sometimes assoc, alist-get, assq, copy-alist. How am I supposed to use `C-h f alist TAB` to discover the function I want? I can't, I have to go to that webpage and read it all. > https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/List-Elements.html sometimes named logically (nth, remove, append), sometimes named after implementation detail (car, cdr), and no grouping at all so I can't `C-h f list TAB` I submit that C-h documentation commands _are_ the tools for the job of discoverability, and were actually mentioned at the very beginning of this discussion. The "consistent naming" was put forward as a means to ease discoverability, so it is (allegedly) an alternative tool for the same job. Maybe I'm in the wrong discussion, but I was always talking about discoverability and the best tools for that, as Philippe started.