On Sun, Mar 5, 2023, 21:21 Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> wrote:

> > Which modes? The ones where "declaration" is a thing.
>
> So we'll have a dozen different commands called 'xxx-find-declarations'
> which will be implemented the same (?) way? Bound to the same key sequence?
>
> If there a particular point to doing that? Do we expect other modes to
> reuse the same binding to do something else? That will reduce UI
> consistency, at the very least.
>

Implementation could be trivial, xref could even provide a command-defining
macro.

Consistency should be evaluated considering the two approaches. Is it more
consistent to have an xref command that doesn't really make sense in a
another dozen languages?

> IOW xref should try to stay language-agnostic, but provide common
> > framework for language-specific things like major modes to reach
> > backends like Eglot or anything else
>
> Most programming languages have something that corresponds to the term
> "declaration".
>

Not sure about that. But if one squints very hard, everything does indeed
look like a nail to one's hammer.

> Mind you the same point made for xref can be made about LSP,
> > language-agnostic on paper, but many a language-specific concept poorly
> > disguised in there. But I see no reason to copy that flaw.
>
> I don't mind the idea of extensibility (and packages like lsp-mode do
> this already: IIRC they have commands called lsp-find-declarations and
> lsp-find-implementations).
>

As commands, this would be bloat in Eglot. But Eglot can give access to
these LSP interfaces.

But insofar as languages do have shared syntactic concepts, I don't see
> why we wouldn't want to include more common ones.
>

"Definition" and "references" are universal enough. "Declaration", "class"
and others, not so much. But that's just my 2c.

João

>