Re: Emacs setup assistants

[Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@glug.org>]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

   For the writer, Texinfo is well-supported by Emacs already, and
   it is easy to write and parse visually (unlike XML, which was
   also proposed).

the most well-supported machinery would be straight elisp (which
is also easy to write and parse visually, for some).  i think if i
were to write a setup assistant, i would find the markup approach
cumbersome (as opposed to the assistant-library-API approach),
because it requires understanding the implicit API anyway; using
markup w/o this understanding is a false economy.

additionally, the markup approach introduces markup-validation,
improper-markup-handling, markup-debugging, and the ever-present
(meta-)documentation requirements.  it becomes its own hive of
complexity, requiring assistance from the necessarily small set of
human experts (since the scheme is only newly hatched), as opposed
to the relatively huge number of programmers who can read/write
elisp already roaming the net.  the even larger number of
programmers who can "read/write" xml is not relevant if they don't
know elisp (intersection trumps union, here).

lastly, the the assistant-library-API approach would be more
easily composable than the markup approach (a natural side-effect
of using the extensible editor's extension language -- go figure).
composability is important for the slack it brings, and other
niceties appreciated by lazy programmers.

ok, that's the entirety of my thoughts on setup assitants support
in emacs.  thanks for taking the time to read this.

thi