Re: Commands, term "closure" and online help

[Michael Heerdegen via "Emacs development discussions." <emacs-devel@gnu.org>]

Joel Reicher <joel.reicher@gmail.com> writes:

> > Aren't "dynamically defined functions" bytecode functions when
> > running compiled code?  So this would not be a better term.
>
> Which bit of the documentation are you thinking of? I can't find that
> phrase with reference to bytecode.

We are talking about the generated documentation in *Help*, right?  I've
just been using my own words.

>
> > AFAIU we want to tell that these functions will, when funcalled, be
> > handled by the interpreter - thus, are interpreted functions in that
> > sense.
>
> My understanding is that the closure is constructed the moment the
> defun (et al) is done, regardless of whether the function is ever
> called.
>
> I'm not familiar with the implementation details but it looks to me
> from a trivial test this happens unconditionally; even when the
> function being defined does not capture anything from its enclosing
> scope...
>
> (defun blah ())
>
> C-x C-e and then C-h f blah to see what I mean. (Maybe this gets
> optimised later?)
>
> That's one of the reasons I think it might be helpful to refer to this
> simply as a function that is "dynamically created", or some variation
> on that.

I know what you want to say.  But technically, the only difference to
named functions and commands is that these are just unnamed.

But: Note that the wording used in the generated help pages has changed
since the start of this thread: we are currently saying (at least in
master) "interactive interpreted-function" or "interactive
byte-code-function".  Can you live with that?


Michael.