Re: Allow specifying services as symbols?

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>>> As more of a philosophical objection than anything, t is a symbol.
>> Hmm, good catch.  So's nil.
> True.  Perhaps this isn't a good idea after all.  It's just come more
> than a few times over the years that people are using 'nntp instead of
> "nntp" and 'imap instead of "imap" and not understanding why they're
> getting errors.

Maybe signalling a clear error would be a better choice.

> The issue came up as a customization user-side problem and I suggested
> allowing symbols.  Using symbols is consistent with many other Emacs
> facilities (too many to list) that use symbols to enumerate a small set
> of choices.  It makes customization simpler and less error-prone for
> software that uses `make-network-process'.  It doesn't really cost

We're talking about an argument to a function, so it's not directly
related to customization.  IOW if there's a problem with customization,
it can be fixed elsewhere.


        Stefan