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: Emacs completion matches selection UI Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:29:14 +0900 Message-ID: <87r498yi45.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <87fvqtg02v.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <8761rkaa5e.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <87txf0390n.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <87y53komex.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <87haa8moh6.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <874n67n450.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <87eh5bkxca.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <87d2kuzzqj.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87a9fylusq.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <878uvizrwz.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <8761qmkyn1.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <87zjnyxdpb.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87k3f2j7xv.fsf@flea.lifelogs.com> <2518D79A-B9E4-45DF-A403-8330145DFD17@gmail.com> <87wqj1xwzc.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <6E27E6FD-4FB8-4342-BB66-1B62E22DDF4F@gmail.com> <87txe5xqyc.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <878uvhe0f6.fsf@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1387466966 16237 80.91.229.3 (19 Dec 2013 15:29:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 15:29:26 +0000 (UTC) Cc: chad , Stefan Monnier , EMACS development team To: Aaron Ecay Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Dec 19 16:29:33 2013 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 1VtfXY-0000Kp-U9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 19 Dec 2013 16:29:33 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:44879 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VtfXY-0006I0-Gh for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 19 Dec 2013 10:29:32 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:50922) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VtfXP-0006AV-Rn for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Dec 2013 10:29:29 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VtfXK-00060P-Fd for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Dec 2013 10:29:23 -0500 Original-Received: from mgmt2.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.224]:45596) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VtfXJ-00060H-R4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Dec 2013 10:29:18 -0500 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mgmt2.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 27D2B970902; Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:29:15 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 09CE911F85A; Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:29:15 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <878uvhe0f6.fsf@gmail.com> X-Mailer: VM undefined under 21.5 (beta34) "kale" 2a0f42961ed4 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 130.158.97.224 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:166611 Archived-At: Aaron Ecay writes: > In this vein, it may be useful to think of the CompletionUI package > . Quoting from the > EmacsWiki description, presumably written by the author: =E2=80=9CTypica= lly, a > lot of code in packages providing some kind of text completion deals > with the user interface. The goal of CompletionUI is to be the > swiss-army knife of in-buffer completion user-interfaces, which any > source of completions can plug in to, thus freeing completion package > writers to concentrate on the task of finding the completions in the > first place.=E2=80=9D +1 to that, but does CompletionUI achieve the goal? > Perhaps predictably , the goal of other completion > package writers adopting this system seems to have gone unrealized. But > maybe if a similar system were =E2=80=9Cblessed=E2=80=9D by being includ= ed in emacs core > (tied to the existing completion-at-point-functions) things might go > better. "Blessing" does help, a lot, but the big problem with systems of this kind is that they *don't* achieve the goal, for several reasons: 1. The various gadgets on a Swiss Army knife are most useful if you don't have access to a workbench with fullsize versions. So while the "Swiss Army knife" metaphor is standard in this kind of thing, a more accurate metaphor is "Snap-On toolbox on casters". Are the gadgets in CompletionUI Snap-On-quality professional tools? 2. Are they sufficiently customizable by apps, while providing sufficient capability with very simple usage so that they make sense for use in RAD prototypes, then tweaked as the prototype is converted to a full-blown app? 3. Is the customization user-oriented, so that the programmer just plugs them in once, and users can easily choose the styles they prefer? Bonus points if it's easy for programmers to provide a suite of defaults without hardcoding them in API calls. 4. Are both the APIs and UIs well-documented? This goes a long way to alleviating the issue in #1, as initial adopters quickly fix bugs, improve interfaces, and adding features.