From: "Paul W. Rankin" <hello@paulwrankin.com>
To: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Improving aesthetics & readability of backquote
Date: Mon, 20 May 2019 23:25:13 +1000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <m236l9ntqe.fsf@paulwrankin.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20190520085241.GA5136@ACM>
On Mon, May 20 2019, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>> Add to this the \` is just an alias for backquote, which
>> doesn't
>> imply any meaning except as relation to itself. Its meaning
>> cannot
>> be inferred through the code alone.
>
> Sorry, I can't make anything out of that paragraph. What
> meaning? What
> relation to what? Which code alone?
The \` symbol is an alias to backquote, and the word "backquote"
only describes the symbol, i.e. circular semantics.
>> I suggest that we could introduce some aliases and augment the
>> reader constucts a little to make them more aesthetically
>> pleasing
>> and more readable.
>
> I don't agree with you that (quote foo) is more readable than
> 'foo. I
> would find (quote foo) tiring to write, and (more importantly)
> tiring to
> read. I believe very early lisps were lacking the ' operator.
> (quoteval foo) would be even worse for me.
I'm using "readability" in the sense of reader comprehension, not
eyestrain.
>> If it remains unclear, my suggestion is not to supplant the
>> original syntax; I position this suggestion in a similar vein
>> as
>> the rx library.
>
> But code has to be maintained, and everybody would have to know
> the
> meaning of these new aliases, and be practiced with them, to be
> able to
> maintain code using them.
Hence the choice of clear, easily understandable aliases.
> I'm afraid I'm against such changes.
I'm proposing an addition, not changes. See the aforementioned rx
library; its relationship to regular expression in Emacs Lisp
should be instructive.
--
https://www.paulwrankin.com
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-05-20 13:25 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 29+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-05-20 3:03 Improving aesthetics & readability of backquote Paul W. Rankin
2019-05-20 3:38 ` Stefan Monnier
2019-05-22 15:44 ` Stefan Monnier
2019-05-20 8:52 ` Alan Mackenzie
2019-05-20 13:25 ` Paul W. Rankin [this message]
2019-05-20 14:02 ` Alan Mackenzie
2019-05-20 14:26 ` Paul W. Rankin
2019-05-20 16:08 ` Ken Olum
2019-05-20 23:19 ` Richard Stallman
2019-05-21 2:06 ` Paul W. Rankin
2019-05-21 2:22 ` Noam Postavsky
2019-05-21 2:39 ` Paul W. Rankin
2019-05-21 20:19 ` Richard Stallman
2019-05-22 2:46 ` Paul W. Rankin
2019-05-22 7:56 ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-05-22 8:55 ` Paul W. Rankin
2019-05-22 15:57 ` Michael Heerdegen
2019-05-22 16:13 ` 조성빈
2019-05-22 16:13 ` Michael Heerdegen
2019-05-22 22:40 ` Richard Stallman
2019-05-20 8:59 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2019-05-20 13:35 ` Paul W. Rankin
2019-05-20 13:47 ` Basil L. Contovounesios
2019-05-20 14:18 ` Paul W. Rankin
2019-05-20 14:48 ` Basil L. Contovounesios
2019-05-20 15:25 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2019-05-20 23:21 ` Richard Stallman
2019-05-21 2:34 ` Paul W. Rankin
2019-05-22 16:14 ` Sam Steingold
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