From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kevin Rodgers Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Documentation of transient-mark-mode is sloppy, wrong, and confused. Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 22:30:52 -0600 Message-ID: References: <20090528122927.GA2175@muc.de> <87fxepf9s8.fsf@cyd.mit.edu> <20090528201529.GA4605@muc.de> <87bppdx8c0.fsf@cyd.mit.edu> <20090528230359.GA1474@muc.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1243571481 2995 80.91.229.12 (29 May 2009 04:31:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 04:31:21 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri May 29 06:31:16 2009 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 1M9tkR-0007dX-H9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 29 May 2009 06:31:15 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:53401 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1M9tkQ-0007n3-NG for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 29 May 2009 00:31:14 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1M9tkL-0007jS-1x for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 29 May 2009 00:31:09 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1M9tkG-0007bl-FY for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 29 May 2009 00:31:08 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=50376 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1M9tkG-0007bb-6Y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 29 May 2009 00:31:04 -0400 Original-Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.229.2]:49955 helo=ciao.gmane.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1M9tkF-0005ye-LH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 29 May 2009 00:31:04 -0400 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1M9tkD-0002Eh-6p for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 29 May 2009 04:31:01 +0000 Original-Received: from c-67-190-36-32.hsd1.co.comcast.net ([67.190.36.32]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 29 May 2009 04:31:01 +0000 Original-Received: from kevin.d.rodgers by c-67-190-36-32.hsd1.co.comcast.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 29 May 2009 04:31:01 +0000 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 24 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: c-67-190-36-32.hsd1.co.comcast.net User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 (Macintosh/20090302) In-Reply-To: X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) 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:111174 Archived-At: Stefan Monnier wrote: >> Hmmm. No you haven't. You have noted one of the circumstances in which >> a mark becomes active, yet haven't said what it is for a mark to BE >> active. It is as though a young child has asked you what "pregnant" >> means, and the entire gist of your answer is "a woman becomes pregnant >> after a kissing and cuddling session". Unless you mention the growing >> foetus, your answer is evasive and unhelpful, in fact not really an >> answer at all. What, exactly, is the essence of "active"ness, in the >> same way that the foetus is the essence of pregnancy? > > The problkem is that the activeness of the mark doesn't describe some > property of some other state. It's a state itself. In your analogy, > there's no foetus that would allow us to determine whether the mark > is active. All we have is the `mark-active' variable, so in the end all > we can say is "the mark is active if the mark is active". Can't we say that "the mark is active if `mark-active' is non-nil"? Note that mark-active is not mentioned in the Emacs manual, only in the Emacs Lisp manual. -- Kevin Rodgers Denver, Colorado, USA