Re: [External] : Re: master 513c5d827d: Use `format-prompt' in

[Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com>]

>>>>> On Tue, 06 Sep 2022 22:23:03 -0400, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> said:

    Richard> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
    Richard> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
    Richard> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

    >> Not only that.  The readability is also diminished.  Compare

    >> (read-char-by-name
    >> "Unicode name, single char, or hex, default all: " t))

    >> with

    >> (read-char-by-name
    >> (format-prompt "Unicode name, single char, or hex" "all")
    >> t)

    >> To me, the first one tells very accurately what will the user see as
    >> the prompt, while the second doesn't.

    Richard> To be fair, the two arguments of `format-prompt' have a clear semantic
    Richard> distinction.  The first is the general description of the argument to
    Richard> be read, and the second is its default value.

Yes. What this particular instance obscures is that the second argument
is generally not a literal string, but a variable, so any general
translation could only be applied to the first argument. Also:

    (format-prompt PROMPT DEFAULT &rest FORMAT-ARGS)

so that also applies to all the FORMAT-ARGS.

Robert
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