From: florian@fsavigny.de (Florian v. Savigny)
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Rationale behind conversion of a nil prefix arg to numeric 1
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 11:45:28 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87inu98ipz.fsf@bertrandrussell.Speedport_W_723V_1_40_000> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20160906071015.GB15537@tuxteam.de> (tomas@tuxteam.de)
> Alternatively, for Andreas the axiom "the default value is always 0"
> holds ;-P
I do sympathise with him, because my question started out supposing
exactly the same thing. It just seems intuitive that nil translates to
the number 0, if any, and when things are intuitive, this is (I think)
generally good.
It all becomes immediately clear when you understand that the numeric
prefix arg has a special purpose, i.e. is conceived as a repeat
counter (and NOT simply a number), but only then. In other words,
`prefix-arg-as-repeat-counter' might be the kind of name that would be
more readily understandable (and would even arguably be more accurate)
than `prefix-numeric-value'.
--
Florian von Savigny
Melanchthonstr. 41
33615 Bielefeld
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2016-09-06 9:45 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 31+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2016-09-04 12:23 Rationale behind conversion of a nil prefix arg to numeric 1 Florian v. Savigny
2016-09-04 14:23 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-09-04 17:11 ` Andreas Röhler
2016-09-04 18:33 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-09-05 7:16 ` Andreas Röhler
2016-09-05 14:56 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-09-05 15:22 ` Kaushal Modi
2016-09-05 16:32 ` Drew Adams
2016-09-05 18:41 ` Andreas Röhler
2016-09-05 19:02 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-09-06 7:10 ` tomas
2016-09-06 9:45 ` Florian v. Savigny [this message]
2016-09-06 10:27 ` tomas
2016-09-06 11:27 ` Andreas Röhler
2016-09-06 13:27 ` Florian v. Savigny
2016-09-06 15:22 ` Drew Adams
2016-09-06 14:20 ` Kaushal Modi
2016-09-06 16:44 ` Andreas Röhler
2016-09-06 16:41 ` Kaushal Modi
2016-09-07 23:11 ` Charles Millar
2016-09-08 13:10 ` Kaushal Modi
2016-09-08 14:42 ` Charles Millar
2016-09-08 15:40 ` Drew Adams
2016-09-06 7:22 ` Andreas Röhler
2016-09-05 17:04 ` Drew Adams
2016-09-05 21:39 ` Florian v. Savigny
[not found] ` <<877faqvxfp.fsf@bertrandrussell.Speedport_W_723V_1_40_000>
2016-09-05 23:32 ` Drew Adams
2016-09-06 3:45 ` B.V. Raghav
2016-09-04 22:53 ` Florian v. Savigny
[not found] ` <<87d1kjjmys.fsf@bertrandrussell.Speedport_W_723V_1_40_000>
2016-09-05 0:52 ` Drew Adams
2016-09-15 12:47 ` Thien-Thi Nguyen
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