(interactive) call or form?

(interactive) call or form?

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hi all,

the article about Emacs and TeX is in the final stage of proof-reading.
(In case you didn't know, folks at the TUGboat are _extremely_ good
copyeditors, and they caught _a lot_ of typos/grammar/stylistic mistakes
in the paper!)  During the discussion, I started to think: can an
"interactive form" (i.e., the thing that makes a function a command) be
called an "interactive call"?  I supposed not, since `interactive' is
not actually "called", but I'm not so sure anymore.  Doing M-:
(interactive "whatever") yields nil, so I assume that calling
`interactive' actually does nothing (like `ignore'), and it is its
presence in the defun that matters.  (And I found out by experimenting
that it may be located anywhere in the defun, but not nested e.g. in an
`if'.)  Also, much of what I found is confirmed by the docstring, but
not everything.

So, is it better to call it a "form" or a "call"?

TIA,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:

> So, is it better to call it a "form" or a "call"?

The manual very often calls it a "form", so it's probably ok to use this
term.

Personally I would prefer something else ("spec" maybe), to accentuate
that it's rather something like a declaration: it's semantics imply more
than the effect of calling it.


Michael.

RE: (interactive) call or form?

[Drew Adams]

> > So, is it better to call it a "form" or a "call"?
> 
> The manual very often calls it a "form", so it's probably ok to use this
> term.
> 
> Personally I would prefer something else ("spec" maybe), to accentuate
> that it's rather something like a declaration: it's semantics imply more
> than the effect of calling it.

Yes.  It is a special form that is used as a spec or
declaration of how the args are created/provided to
the function body.

That said, the code used as the arg to `interactive',
apart from the literal-string case, is not declarative
at all.

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

> The manual very often calls it a "form", so
> it's probably ok to use this term.

Just who is expected to read Borkowski's
article? Because "form" isn't that widely known
and in the Lisp sense it isn't even included in

@book{oxford-dictionary-of-computing,
  title      = {Oxford Dictionary of Computing},
  author     = {John Daintith and Edmund Wright},
  publisher  = {Oxford University Press},
  year       = 2010,
  ISBN       = 0199234000
}

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com> writes:

> Just who is expected to read Borkowski's
> article? Because "form" isn't that widely known
> and in the Lisp sense it isn't even included in
>
> @book{oxford-dictionary-of-computing,
>   title      = {Oxford Dictionary of Computing},
>   author     = {John Daintith and Edmund Wright},
>   publisher  = {Oxford University Press},
>   year       = 2010,
>   ISBN       = 0199234000
> }

So you think people understand "special form" but don't understand
"form"?


Michael.

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

> So you think people understand "special form"
> but don't understand "form"?

In a way, yes, because "special form" sounds
like something you don't understand, while
"form" sounds like something you would
understand, only you don't (probably), so it is
more confusing.

Technically, "special form" can be used, but
then it should be explained, "form" can also be
used (should also be explained), because both
are correct.

Since the topic is TeX, either (or both) should
be marked so the reader understands it is
a special... term!

Provide a glossary! Or a "glossary companion"
on-line. Usually nobody cares about such stuff
but perhaps 1/100 will and 5/100 or more can't
complain it is missing :)

If 100 people reads the article, it is worth
doing. Compared to writing the article, it is
very fast work and besides kill&yank can
probably be employed from the Emacs manual.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com> writes:

> > So you think people understand "special form"
> > but don't understand "form"?
>
> In a way, yes, because "special form" sounds like something you don't
> understand, while "form" sounds like something you would understand,
> only you don't (probably), so it is more confusing.

These words name different things anyway: the first one is about the
binding of the function cell of the symbol `interactive', the other
names the whole s-exp "(interactive ...)".  AFAIU the OP wanted a
description of the latter.


Michael.

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2018-04-09, at 16:39, Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> wrote:

> Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com> writes:
>
>> > So you think people understand "special form"
>> > but don't understand "form"?
>>
>> In a way, yes, because "special form" sounds like something you don't
>> understand, while "form" sounds like something you would understand,
>> only you don't (probably), so it is more confusing.
>
> These words name different things anyway: the first one is about the
> binding of the function cell of the symbol `interactive', the other
> names the whole s-exp "(interactive ...)".  AFAIU the OP wanted a
> description of the latter.

I guess you're right.  Thanks!

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

>> form" but don't understand "form"? In a way,
>> yes, because "special form" sounds like
>> something you don't understand, while "form"
>> sounds like something you would understand,
>> only you don't (probably), so it is
>> more confusing.
>
> These words name different things anyway: the
> first one is about the binding of the
> function cell of the symbol `interactive',
> the other names the whole s-exp "(interactive
> ...)". AFAIU the OP wanted a description of
> the latter.

Say what? :)

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Emanuel Berg]

Marcin Borkowski wrote:

> During the discussion, I started to think:
> can an "interactive form" (i.e., the thing
> that makes a function a command) be called an
> "interactive call"?

The technical term is "special form",
a primitive function (i.e. written in C, but
callable from Lisp) that has its own rules for
evaluating its arguments.

    (special-form-p #'interactive)     ; t
    (special-form-p #'special-form-p)  ; nil

Use the source, Luke! `interactive' is in
callint.c .

> the article about Emacs and TeX is in the
> final stage of proof-reading.

Great, post it here as well when its 100% done!

> (In case you didn't know, folks at the
> TUGboat are _extremely_ good copyeditors, and
> they caught _a lot_ of
> typos/grammar/stylistic mistakes in the
> paper!)

That's normal. If it isn't like that, something
is wrong with you...

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2018-04-08, at 06:32, Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com> wrote:

> Marcin Borkowski wrote:
>
>> (In case you didn't know, folks at the
>> TUGboat are _extremely_ good copyeditors, and
>> they caught _a lot_ of
>> typos/grammar/stylistic mistakes in the
>> paper!)
>
> That's normal. If it isn't like that, something
> is wrong with you...

You clearly do not have a lot of experience publishing in scientific
journals, do you?

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Emanuel Berg]

Marcin Borkowski wrote:

> You clearly do not have a lot of experience
> publishing in scientific journals, do you?

It doesn't matter what journal or publication,
scientific or not, it happens.

But no. The only science I do is the sweet
science. But even there, there are a lot of
mistakes, even at the very top level :)

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2018-04-09, at 22:58, Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com> wrote:

> Marcin Borkowski wrote:
>
>> You clearly do not have a lot of experience
>> publishing in scientific journals, do you?
>
> It doesn't matter what journal or publication,
> scientific or not, it happens.
>
> But no. The only science I do is the sweet
> science. But even there, there are a lot of
> mistakes, even at the very top level :)

So let me tell you that while I'm not a prolific author with respect to
journal papers, I can attest to this: not only copyediting in the
TUGboat is superb, but (contrary to most scientific journals I published
my papers in) it is _existent_ at all.

Best,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Emanuel Berg]

Marcin Borkowski wrote:

> So let me tell you that while I'm not
> a prolific author with respect to journal
> papers, I can attest to this: not only
> copyediting in the TUGboat is superb, but
> (contrary to most scientific journals
> I published my papers in) it is _existent_
> at all.

Aha, you mean it like that. I meant it is
normal with mistakes in any text. You have
a mental image of what you want to convey.
When you read the text, the mental image gets
the upper hand and while you think you are
reading the text, you are actually surfing the
mental image. So the extreme case is reading
a crap text thinking it's great.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: (interactive) call or form?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2018-04-10, at 20:32, Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com> wrote:

> Marcin Borkowski wrote:
>
>> So let me tell you that while I'm not
>> a prolific author with respect to journal
>> papers, I can attest to this: not only
>> copyediting in the TUGboat is superb, but
>> (contrary to most scientific journals
>> I published my papers in) it is _existent_
>> at all.
>
> Aha, you mean it like that. I meant it is
> normal with mistakes in any text. You have
> a mental image of what you want to convey.
> When you read the text, the mental image gets
> the upper hand and while you think you are
> reading the text, you are actually surfing the
> mental image. So the extreme case is reading
> a crap text thinking it's great.

Well, that I know too well...

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl