From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Juanma Barranquero" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: constant `e' Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 10:32:09 +0100 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1171013703 10050 80.91.229.12 (9 Feb 2007 09:35:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 09:35:03 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Emacs-Devel To: "Drew Adams" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Feb 09 10:34:56 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HFS9f-0005N0-PZ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:34:56 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HFS9f-0001kG-5E for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 09 Feb 2007 04:34:55 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1HFS75-0001DC-Be for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 09 Feb 2007 04:32:16 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1HFS72-0001CC-0q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 09 Feb 2007 04:32:13 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HFS71-0001Bh-4o for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 09 Feb 2007 04:32:11 -0500 Original-Received: from wr-out-0506.google.com ([64.233.184.238]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1HFS70-0000jJ-Q5 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 09 Feb 2007 04:32:10 -0500 Original-Received: by wr-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id 71so864593wri for ; Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:32:10 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=Wbk5wvJpnJ7SOzYE0Fwno5m4kRm2nlnQ4UosVzaUgxAObtAWaAgLjEhsmGNl5tYM2IUpUQh5/zJTR/S4wlzsfcoZmv6dVWiMUalTATS+iJHZDYd0xP3cTexMjIkFWGTtBS96YwD3T0FZYqRkZf+Z9Dam/7nk6dyHfnrhalFn3c8= Original-Received: by 10.114.107.19 with SMTP id f19mr5734171wac.1171013529959; Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:32:09 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: by 10.114.234.16 with HTTP; Fri, 9 Feb 2007 01:32:09 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: Content-Disposition: inline X-detected-kernel: Linux 2.4-2.6 (Google crawlbot) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:66151 Archived-At: On 2/9/07, Drew Adams wrote: > Obviously, renaming `e' now would break existing code, but if others agreed, > then we might plan to deprecate `e' over time, in favor of a longer name. I think that would be a good idea, if anything because the risk of shadowing `e' with a local (unrelated) binding is quite high, and that could be a difficult bug to spot. > ;; Careful when editing this file ... typos here will be hard to spot. > ;; (defconst pi 3.14159265358979323846264338327 > ;; "The value of Pi (3.14159265358979323846264338327...)") > > Perhaps that comment dated from some time (?) pre-Emacs 20 when `pi' was > defined using explicit decimal notation That's the only reasonable explanation. These comments should be deleted. > Undefining it and seeing what happens would be one approach... Obviously not > something to attempt before the release, in any case. ;-) No :) I find very curious this change by Stefan: ;; It's too inconvenient to make `e' a constant because it's used as ;; a temporary variable all the time. (defvar e (exp 1) "The value of e (2.7182818...).") But (let ((pi 3.2)) pi) => 3.2 so there's no problem with constants and temporary variables. I think that must be related to some local patches he mentioned a while ago for allowing real constants... Am I right, Stefan, or did I misunderstand this comment in the code? /L/e/k/t/u