From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Daniel Mendler Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Improvement proposals for `completing-read' Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2021 11:18:14 +0200 Message-ID: References: <09b67fc5-f8fd-c48a-8b0b-ad47c88761f1@yandex.ru> <292a9f63-5a41-7b32-66f2-67d06f138a09@yandex.ru> <7d03e917-6a61-23b3-e735-a8e43c3fb65f@daniel-mendler.de> <01ffe85f-6bdb-39a5-b20a-e3c60bea3e2e@yandex.ru> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="22498"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" To: Dmitry Gutov , emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sat Apr 10 11:21:51 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 1lV9oN-0005jL-8c for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sat, 10 Apr 2021 11:21:51 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50222 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lV9oM-0000bC-AW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sat, 10 Apr 2021 05:21:50 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:44114) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lV9l3-00078R-Ar for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Apr 2021 05:18:30 -0400 Original-Received: from server.qxqx.de ([2a01:4f8:121:346::180]:60705 helo=mail.qxqx.de) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lV9ky-0004no-Fc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Apr 2021 05:18:24 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=qxqx.de; s=mail1392553390; h=Content-Transfer-Encoding:Content-Type:In-Reply-To: MIME-Version:Date:Message-ID:From:References:To:Subject:Sender:Reply-To:Cc: Content-ID:Content-Description:Resent-Date:Resent-From:Resent-Sender: Resent-To:Resent-Cc:Resent-Message-ID:List-Id:List-Help:List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe:List-Post:List-Owner:List-Archive; bh=jssTptgAeYJ65k6DhX+l9Gf/OfeRXYTjJ3CT8Ixq2mk=; b=Big2PvpKiedlTJphswCaxZVMW1 rKaWl9NlUpbfa0LQXpZN+RgyAlZkrHh7LQyWEOO+QbeF0pq2TjmGUJdf5C4YpBSGP/N042zkOdpSd SdWmjRG45n0jOmo3CL0cFoLnl7fZHI2zS9FVwHBMY3qVDRDNpAcr+4TEqIRPF66DXV4Y=; In-Reply-To: <01ffe85f-6bdb-39a5-b20a-e3c60bea3e2e@yandex.ru> Content-Language: en-US Received-SPF: pass client-ip=2a01:4f8:121:346::180; envelope-from=mail@daniel-mendler.de; helo=mail.qxqx.de X-Spam_score_int: -41 X-Spam_score: -4.2 X-Spam_bar: ---- X-Spam_report: (-4.2 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, DKIM_SIGNED=0.1, DKIM_VALID=-0.1, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_MED=-2.3, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action 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:267784 Archived-At: On 4/10/21 4:21 AM, Dmitry Gutov wrote: >> These `consult--async-*` functions can be chained together to produce >> an async pipeline. The goal here was to have reusable functions which >> I can glue together to create different async backends. See for >> example the pipeline for asynchronous commands: >> https://github.com/minad/consult/blob/3121b34e207222b2db6ac96a655d68c0edf1a449/consult.el#L1505-L1513. > > I also like that idea. > > How are the backtraces in case of error? Whether they can be made > readable enough, was one of the sticking points in the (quite heated) > discussion of bug#41531. Backtraces are rather opaque. But having such issues on the language level should not be a road block. I think the proper fix would be to improve the debugging infrastructure slightly. Instead of printing bytecodes - make this more accessible. Either show some disassembled string or show location information, which should be attached to the lambdas. Elisp retains all the information due to its dynamic nature. So all the information is still present, we can print all objects in a nice way. I believe the state of introspectability of lambdas is a result of the late introduction of lexical binding. I am so glad and thankful we got this - I just saw that Stefan Monnier pushed the last few patches switching over files from dynamic to lexical binding. But not that you get me wrong - the dynamic/lexical combination is an excellent feature for Emacs and its extensibility. Then there were a few other issue with lambdas, I think the interpreter captures too much in the closures which can leads to large closures, which is bad for debugability. The bytecode compiler in contrast seems to perform an analysis. Is this right - please correct me if I am wrong? I wonder why there is even the actual interpreter left - why is it not possible to pass everything through bytecode? I guess this is a legacy issue and also a bootstrapping issue since the bytecode compiler is written in elisp itself. Furthermore I had another issue with lambdas - if you create large closures, which I am doing with Consult async, which capture the whole candidates set, then you end up with memory problems if you register these closures as hooks. The problem is that `add-hook/remove-hook` compares using `equal` and this uses hash tables internally, which can get very expensive. See bug#46326, bug#46407 and bug#46414. >> It is not a global variable but a function. > > That function would have to work with (and notify) different frontends, > so that probably requires a hook variable of some sort where they would > register themselves. And that is a global variable. > > And/or there would need to be added some tracking of which frontend to > send the results to. Yes, in Consult I am using a hook which performs the refreshing `consult--completion-refresh-hook`. Each backend registers itself there and refreshes if it is currently active in the relevant minibuffer. > I would probably say that a UI should itself know better when to refresh > or not, but I'm guessing you have good counter-examples. One could update the UI using some timer if an async source is used (polling). However since I am setting this on top of the `completing-read' infrastructure I felt it to be better to do it the other way round, since the table is only queried when the user enters new input. I guess for fast sources polling will be as good, but for slow sources, notifying the UI is better. >>> No hurry at all. Sometimes, though, a big feature like that can >>> inform the whole design from the outset. >> >> Yes, sure. When planning to do a big overhaul you are certainly right. >> But currently I am more focused on fixing a few smaller pain points >> with the API, like retaining text properties and so on. > > Sounds good. I just wanted to add some context for completeness, in case > the work turns into the direction of the "next completing-read". Yes, it seems the discussion already went a bit in that direction. I agree that it is good to keep all these points in the head if one designs a new `completing-read'. However from my work on Consult I am actually not that unhappy with `completing-read' as is. With the handful of small proposals I made in my original mail the state will be improved where I had issues. If you look at my `consult--read` wrapper, it has to do some special enhancements (preview, narrowing, async, ...), but I think one can work reasonably well with the `completing-read' API. For now I prefer to work with what exists than throwing everything out. At least the Consult/Embark package show that one can implement more advanced completion features based on top of the existing infrastructure, with only a small amount of advices/hacks. And it is already somehow nice, since one can swap out the UI and use Consult with Selectrum, Vertico, Icomplete, default completion and maybe more in the future. Daniel Mendler