Re: Inferred function types in the *Help* buffer

[Andrea Corallo <acorallo@gnu.org>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Andrea Corallo <acorallo@gnu.org>
>> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> Date: Tue, 30 May 2023 12:46:04 -0400
>> 
>> Okay I installed ecc1d990d9e into master to implement this, please let
>> me know if the entry in NEWS can be improved or feel free to just do it
>> (I'm terrible at writing).
>
> The NEWS entry, viz.:
>
>   ** Help
>   ** 'describe-function' shows function inferred type when available.
>   For native compiled Lisp functions 'describe-function' prints (after
>   the signature) the automatically inferred function type as well.
>
> Is IMO too terse.  "Inferred type" is terminology we didn't use and
> don't explain the manual, so the above doesn't really tell what kind
> of information is displayed.  We should give a hint, and perhaps have
> more details in the ELisp manual, probably as part of documenting
> subr-type.

Okay, I think I need some advise on where to get started on this so this
weekend I can try to put some effort on.  Where should we add the
documentation for subr-type in the manual?

>> Also I'd like to improve this feature to list also the function types
>> that are known to the compiler (Read `comp-known-type-specifiers').  ATM
>> they lives in comp.el but would be better to move them out.
>
> I don't necessarily see the reason.  We will probably move to having
> native-compilation be the default, in which case comp.el will be
> loaded in the majority of sessions quite soon after startup.  So it
> doesn't make a lot of sense to try to move these out of comp.el.

Right, from this POV I get it.  Breaking comp.el in two I'm not sure
it's worth, as of now the only part that would be used outside is
actually comp-known-type-specifiers.

Thanks

  Andrea