() "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
() Sat, 10 Jan 2015 17:07:54 -0500

   I recognize that you don't want me to "change the subject" to
   refactoring, but I don't see this as a change of subject. The
   concern isn't as such code completion, that's just a detail.

Right, i see this discussion as kind of like trying to decide
how to get to the a southeast destination on the gridded city
streets: one can go south then east, or east then south:
  
|   A──────────────y         A -- you are here
|   │              │         B -- destination
|   │              │
|   │              │         x -- completion supported
|   │              │         y -- AST exposed
|   │              │
|   x──────────────B

At the destination, Emacs and GCC will be friendly and fruitful
and a new era of meta-to-the-Nth free software hacking begins.
M-x praise-gnu-i-can-hardly-wait RET!

I think the route through ‘x’, determining the minimal required
design for supporting only completion and implementing that,
makes for a lot more work, later (segment ‘xB’).  That will be a
pain not only in quantity, but also in quality, in the sense of
conceptual backtracking, design retrofitting, and other "undo".

I think it would be wise to traverse ‘Ay’ first, even though
that's a lot of work, too, and more importantly, fraught w/ the
danger of (professional :-D) proprietary misappropriation.  The
latter risk is mitigated because traversing ‘yB’ will be fast.
True, it will be fast also for the (pro) prop m.prop. forces,
but i think free software hackers are more nimble, confident,
and capable of achieving a multiplicity of superior results.

That last statement is both evidence- and faith-based.  The
reader is invited to percolate their experience to taste...

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