From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Question on pcase Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2015 17:47:19 +0000 Message-ID: <20151024174719.GB2731@acm.fritz.box> References: <871tcngdv2.fsf@gmail.com> <87k2qe1u09.fsf@web.de> <83r3kmrtat.fsf@gnu.org> <87r3kl22zk.fsf@web.de> <837fmdzpf2.fsf@gnu.org> <87oafp659p.fsf@web.de> <831tclzly9.fsf@gnu.org> <87fv115t20.fsf@web.de> <20151024090146.GA1849@acm.fritz.box> <878u6spgmp.fsf@gmx.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1445708784 20233 80.91.229.3 (24 Oct 2015 17:46:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2015 17:46:24 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Michael Heerdegen , Eli Zaretskii , Oleh Krehel , Emacs Development To: Stephen Berman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Oct 24 19:46:16 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Zq2tK-0005OH-HG for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 24 Oct 2015 19:46:06 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:45158 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zq2tE-0004oh-Ok for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 24 Oct 2015 13:46:00 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:56457) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zq2sw-0004md-9R for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 24 Oct 2015 13:45:43 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zq2st-0003vB-3g for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 24 Oct 2015 13:45:42 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]:37244) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zq2ss-0003uo-Kj for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 24 Oct 2015 13:45:38 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 52127 invoked by uid 3782); 24 Oct 2015 17:45:37 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p5B1464C0.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [91.20.100.192]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Sat, 24 Oct 2015 19:45:35 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 2818 invoked by uid 1000); 24 Oct 2015 17:47:19 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <878u6spgmp.fsf@gmx.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: FreeBSD 9.x X-Received-From: 193.149.48.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:192567 Archived-At: Hello, Stephen. On Sat, Oct 24, 2015 at 02:58:54PM +0200, Stephen Berman wrote: > On Sat, 24 Oct 2015 09:01:46 +0000 Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > 2. "Semantics", as a noun, is always plural in English (a bit like > > "Eltern" in German). > It's morphologically plural but syntactically singular, like "physics" > -- at least in American English, but I think also in British English; or > would you really say "Semantics are the study of meaning" or "Semantics > are a science, and physics are, too"? Hence, I think in Yes, my mistake. > > -;; All yet to understand is the semantic each of the basic PATTERNs. > > +;; All that remains to understand are the semantics of each of the basic PATTERNs. > ^^^ > "are" should be replaced by "is". (Even if "are" is acceptable here in > British English, AFAIK the standard for GNU documentation is American > English.) Indeed, that "are" should be an "is". > > -;; fulfils eihter `arrayp' or `numberp'. And 3 if the binding of x is > > +;; fulfils either `arrayp' or `numberp'. And 3 if the binding of x is > ^^^^^^^ > I believe "fulfills" is the usual spelling in American English. I just looked that one up. "fulfills" is indeed the usual American English spelling, "fulfils" being the British English spelling. > > ;; This is a pattern form that allows you to match a pattern PAT > > ;; against an _arbitrary_ expression EXP. This is not special, > > -;; matching PAT is done as you have learned, just against the EXP you > > +;; matching PAT is done as you have learned, just on the EXP you > > ;; specify there, and not the EXPRESSION given to pcase at top level. > Why replace "against" with "on" here but not in the preceding line? I > think "against" is usual in this context. A somewhat better formulation > is this, IMO: "The only difference from the pattern matching you have > learned is that PAT is matched against the EXP you specify here..." Oh, no! This is complicated, too. Perhaps the best preposition for "match" here is "with", on the grounds that harmony is expected rather than a fight. You might match one sporting team against another, but you'd match the colour of an item of clothing with that of another. Or something like that. > > -;; If you are used to understand grammers: the above description of > > -;; `QPAT describes a quite simpel grammer. You make like to try it > > +;; If you are used to understanding grammars: the above description of > > +;; `QPAT describes a quite simple grammar. You might like to try it > I think a somewhat better formulation is this: "If you are familiar with > formal language grammars, the above description..." Possibly. But that's rewriting the original, rather than correcting it. > Steve Berman -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).