From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Drew Adams Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: RE: adding namespaces to emacs-lisp (better elisp?) Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 07:34:33 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: References: <874nbh2z3y.fsf@ferrier.me.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1374849293 6110 80.91.229.3 (26 Jul 2013 14:34:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:34:53 +0000 (UTC) To: Nic Ferrier , emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jul 26 16:34:54 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1V2j6Z-0000kT-UH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 26 Jul 2013 16:34:52 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:37962 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V2j6Z-00010x-IJ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 26 Jul 2013 10:34:51 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:42413) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V2j6R-00010k-1R for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 26 Jul 2013 10:34:44 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V2j6P-0008JC-71 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 26 Jul 2013 10:34:42 -0400 Original-Received: from userp1040.oracle.com ([156.151.31.81]:50712) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V2j6O-0008J4-Vo for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 26 Jul 2013 10:34:41 -0400 Original-Received: from ucsinet21.oracle.com (ucsinet21.oracle.com [156.151.31.93]) by userp1040.oracle.com (Sentrion-MTA-4.3.1/Sentrion-MTA-4.3.1) with ESMTP id r6QEYZaE031649 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:34:35 GMT Original-Received: from aserz7021.oracle.com (aserz7021.oracle.com [141.146.126.230]) by ucsinet21.oracle.com (8.14.4+Sun/8.14.4) with ESMTP id r6QEYYHQ006924 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:34:35 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt120.oracle.com (abhmt120.oracle.com [141.146.116.72]) by aserz7021.oracle.com (8.14.4+Sun/8.14.4) with ESMTP id r6QEYYIc007642; Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:34:34 GMT In-Reply-To: <874nbh2z3y.fsf@ferrier.me.uk> X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Oracle Beehive Extensions for Outlook 2.0.1.7 (607090) [OL 12.0.6668.5000 (x86)] X-Source-IP: ucsinet21.oracle.com [156.151.31.93] X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.4.x-2.6.x [generic] X-Received-From: 156.151.31.81 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:162137 Archived-At: > http://nic.ferrier.me.uk/blog/2013_06/adding-namespaces-to-elisp is > a proposal to add namespaces to emacs-lisp. >=20 > I'd be really interested in what people think about this, whether it > would be worth my time trying to do this or not. OK, I'll start. I am in favor of the Common Lisp spec - IOW, Common Lisp "packages". I am in favor of such a namespace system for Emacs Lisp. I read your proposal overview, Nic. It's not clear to me just what the differences would be from the Common Lisp package system. Perhaps you could spell the differences out in more detail somewhere. But the closer we can get to the CL spec the better, IMO. If we could conform to it completely, that would be great. Even keeping the same terminology, symbol names etc. as CL would help. It would help users who are coming from Common Lisp or who happen to read Common Lisp doc. And it would help the reuse/transfer of existing code from CL to Elisp. (Yes, such reuse/transfer might require some massaging, but similar syntax and semantics would help minimize that operation.) Of course, adopting CL terminology in this regard should mean that we would drop the terminology used so far for Emacs "packages". An argument can be made that both uses of the word "package" are somewhat unfortunate. At this point, I think conforming to the terminology that has been used in CL for 30 years is the right approach, regardless of whether CL "packages" are really, in effect, namespaces. So +1 for adding CL-style namespaces to Emacs Lisp. One opinion.