Re: Making ielm behave like a shell (getting to previous commands using the up-arrow key)

[Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de>]

Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:

> For me and in my programming somebody from scheme programming,
> probably in Guile teached me that I should be making smaller functions
> where each function does something and outputs something. And I that
> gave me impression of being very simple. But then in Emacs packages I
> too often find long and incomprehensible functions that do not follow
> the style I have learned before some years.

It's debatable how large defuns should be.  In the Emacs sources, a lot
of them could be split or refactored indeed.  What we have is the result
of a development.  In the repositories, small changes are preferred and
are better traceable with version control systems, and refactoring is an
unrewarding job that even messes git history.  As a consequence, defuns
tend to grow.  I guess that is one side of the phenomenon called "bit
rotting".

The other side is that what one might consider as an ideal size of
defuns (or "factors") in his code might vary with your familiarity and
experience with the language and the project.  Experienced people might
find relatively large units ok that would be not acceptable for somebody
for whom working with that language is not daily business.

Regards,

Michael.