From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Michael Heerdegen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: The poor state of documentation of pcase like things. Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2015 15:59:37 +0100 Message-ID: <87io3m60bq.fsf@web.de> References: <20151216202605.GA3752@acm.fritz.box> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1451055614 3603 80.91.229.3 (25 Dec 2015 15:00:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2015 15:00:14 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 25 16:00:06 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aCTqf-0006wQ-1c for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 25 Dec 2015 16:00:05 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35611 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aCTqe-0006Ld-Br for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 25 Dec 2015 10:00:04 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38557) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aCTqR-0006LU-Me for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 25 Dec 2015 09:59:52 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aCTqO-0007wc-FH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 25 Dec 2015 09:59:51 -0500 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:55083) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aCTqO-0007vO-7d for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 25 Dec 2015 09:59:48 -0500 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aCTqM-0006aC-Mb for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 25 Dec 2015 15:59:46 +0100 Original-Received: from ip-90-186-2-24.web.vodafone.de ([90.186.2.24]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 25 Dec 2015 15:59:46 +0100 Original-Received: from michael_heerdegen by ip-90-186-2-24.web.vodafone.de with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 25 Dec 2015 15:59:46 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 31 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: ip-90-186-2-24.web.vodafone.de User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:xBdZQOBu35n7R7vjTswGzPord10= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:196827 Archived-At: Richard Stallman writes: > That comma won't add much to the size of the code, and typing it is > not much work. But I think that avoiding it would make pcase more > attractive and conceptually simpler. But it will make it conceptually more complicated, because we would obfuscate the real semantics. A tool with inconsistent semantics is neither simple nor attractive. If you understand "_" as a "concept" per se in Elisp, I think we agree that in your case it doesn't fit the expectations of how you think it would integrate in pcase's semantics. If we make it just look like some people guess it would be working, we are not doing them a favor, because we just spare them to learn the real semantics at the moment. That will make it harder to learn pcase, not easier. If for some people the thing is different as they first expect, avoiding to let them see that it is different is not good, just for the sake of making it look more familiar at the first look. I think people will then more likely forget commas at other places in ` patterns. They will have more problems to understand more complicated ` patterns. It is important to understand that _ is a pattern in pcase, a pattern like any other pcase pattern, and not something else or special. OTOH after you have written ",_" for yourself a three times or so, you'll just have gotten used to it. Regards, Michael.