From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [PATCH] Interpret #r"..." as a raw string Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2021 00:39:27 -0500 Message-ID: References: <20210227.031857.1351840144740816188.conao3@gmail.com> <83pn0mppjd.fsf@gnu.org> <87zgzqz6mu.fsf@db48x.net> <83h7ls67rv.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="37545"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: db48x@db48x.net, eliz@gnu.org, conao3@gmail.com, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Matt Armstrong Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Mar 05 06:40:15 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1lI3CB-0009d8-7Q for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 05 Mar 2021 06:40:15 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:46842 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lI3CA-0008VT-7P for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 05 Mar 2021 00:40:14 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:47080) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lI3BU-000865-0h for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Mar 2021 00:39:32 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:52019) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lI3BR-0001Gb-47; Fri, 05 Mar 2021 00:39:29 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1lI3BP-0007PO-7U; Fri, 05 Mar 2021 00:39:27 -0500 In-Reply-To: (message from Matt Armstrong on Wed, 03 Mar 2021 18:47:10 -0800) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:266004 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > I have noticed that most Lisp reference material does not use the word > "literal" to describe source code elements. Which raises the question: > how does Lisp documentation typically talk about these things? > In my experience, most references typically don't name them at all. > E.g. when talking about strings it might say "the read syntax of a > string is ..." but things that satisfy "the read syntax of a string" are > never given a name like "string literal." There is no need to give them a name, because their role in Lisp is limited and only one section in the manual needs to talk about it. In documenting Lisp, the printed representation for an object is a side issue. We only need to talk about it in one place. In most programming languages, an expression is text and a program is text. That text can contain string literals. A string literal is the text in a text that represents a string in an expression. The manual has to describe the rules for that text at every level. Including how to write and use string literals. It may need to discuss using a string literal in a certain place in an expression. In Lisp, a program is a data structure. It does not contain string literals -- it contains strings. Thus, various sections of the manual can talk about what happens if you use a string in a certain expression, but they don't need to talk about the printed representation of that expression. -- Dr Richard Stallman Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)