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: Round-tripping key definitions Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2021 23:53:57 -0500 Message-ID: References: <875yswtzxh.fsf@gnus.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="2332"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: larsi@gnus.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Mon Nov 15 05:55:48 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 1mmU20-0000Po-FQ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 15 Nov 2021 05:55:48 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60470 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mmU1z-0006lK-9M for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 14 Nov 2021 23:55:47 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:41102) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mmU0E-0004Ju-1y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 14 Nov 2021 23:53:58 -0500 Original-Received: from [2001:470:142:3::e] (port=49152 helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mmU0D-0008Lr-Ox; Sun, 14 Nov 2021 23:53:57 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=Date:References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From: mime-version; bh=46P0ifOVyAztsUMYvtH/5KmAu3y11cG6PMGFGdiNaLo=; b=gIBhTw5msxjX cgRR/ZwR5uxtptTEIfuO1PjpiCv9DN7X2vZOAkoqVi8/wxIvRCM2Sxb5jz9RiUg06iYZ3yEseQL+s UQUmenop/WJcW30bSyfuF7St1RUW/w0mirhPTeEq8XUASA9450RRjpYTantl1oj+qiMLyXnG5/9kI pbWx1V+R0xhVo1V0z1VStUVrVKzGpcN3SukuO1cb53q1JHqXi8GvhvjSZOLF0XY3w4BipK3kTXSZv q02IYPr+75SHadeVq+202ZhixA4xdLPQ5xixpj3V5CX0oi7t3DmzTEHZZw7NK7aJqyt2XNGAgbNKv +m0ERVT7mEfX/mmjZEIb7Q==; Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mmU0D-0004tN-Gk; Sun, 14 Nov 2021 23:53:57 -0500 In-Reply-To: (message from Stefan Monnier on Sat, 13 Nov 2021 09:43:15 -0500) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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:279462 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 am not familiar with the term "round-tripping" and I have to guess what it means. I think it has to do with using the same syntactic scheme to describe key bindings in output as to specify them in input. I think that is a good idea in general, but what it means is not so simple. For instance, using the same syntactic scheme does not imply there can only be one syntax for any given input. Compare the situation with Lisp objects. In general, we try to make printed sexps read back into something similar. But it is not always totally identical. There are printed representations that can't be read, and there are multiple input representations for the same sexp. These exist for good reason; to make things more "regular" would be absurd. I think we should not arbitrarily try to eliminate all such quirks in key sequences either. -- Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org) Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)