From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Don't concat directories to file names Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:16:29 +0900 Message-ID: <87fy4fd0yq.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <86wsxxvief.fsf@ketchup.de.uu.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1182816348 31245 80.91.229.12 (26 Jun 2007 00:05:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:05:48 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, Stefan Monnier , rms@gnu.org To: "Juanma Barranquero" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jun 26 02:05:46 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1I2yYw-00082U-94 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 26 Jun 2007 02:05:43 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1I2yYv-0004cM-VJ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:05:41 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1I2yYt-0004bM-BP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:05:39 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1I2yYs-0004aP-9H for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:05:38 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1I2yYs-0004aK-4Q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:05:38 -0400 Original-Received: from mtps02.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.224]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1I2yYq-0001kc-Rd; Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:05:37 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mtps02.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id A847C7FFD; Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:05:32 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 837EE11EE10; Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:16:30 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: VM 7.17 under 21.5 (beta28) "fuki" (+CVS-20070621) XEmacs Lucid X-detected-kernel: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:73870 Archived-At: Juanma Barranquero writes: > I know, I'm even using `directory-file-name' in The Function Without A > Name. But Emacs users and developers apparently don't, if they don't > balk at the idea of a function *-file returning the path (cough, the > filename, I mean) of a directory. It's not globally consistent, of course. As with many other concepts in Emacs there is a confusion between objects, names for objects, and handles (references) to objects. Consider fonts and coding systems. (XEmacs actually has font objects and coding system objects, but I have yet to see a case where the distinction between a symbol naming such an object and the actual object is useful.) Consider that Emacs doesn't have a notion of file handle. What serves for a file handle in Emacs is a buffer visiting a file. Thus the distinction between the verbs "find" and "locate", which serves the same kind of purpose with complete different syntax. I don't mean to argue that you're "wrong" (how could you be? this is definitely a YMMV kinda thang :-). Nor does this directly address the PATH-style path vs. URL-style path issue. This helps me to rationalize it, that's all.