Remove delete-overlay?

Remove delete-overlay?

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

I have some times looked at the doc string for delete-overlay to 
convince myself that the overlay is not deleted by delete-overlay. It is 
just removed from the buffer.

The doc string does not tell that part of the story however. It would be 
nice if it did.

Perhaps the function should be called remove-overlay instead since it 
just removes the overlay from the buffer. But my English is to weak to 
tell if this is better. And delete-char deletes an "a" but "a" continues 
to exist and I find nothing strange about that ...

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Andreas Schwab]

"Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

> The doc string does not tell that part of the story however. It would be
> nice if it did.

The Emacs Lisp manual has an extended description.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, SuSE Labs, schwab@suse.de
SuSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
PGP key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Stefan Monnier]

> I have some times looked at the doc string for delete-overlay to convince
> myself that the overlay is not deleted by delete-overlay.  It is just
> removed from the buffer.

I always felt like it should be called "overlay-detach" or something like
that, but I also always felt like it was much too late to change its name.


        Stefan

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Daniel Brockman]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> I have some times looked at the doc string for delete-overlay to convince
>> myself that the overlay is not deleted by delete-overlay.  It is just
>> removed from the buffer.
>
> I always felt like it should be called "overlay-detach" or something like
> that, but I also always felt like it was much too late to change its name.

Why not `detach-overlay'?

If all functions were named according to `TYPE-OPERATION',
what reason would we have to keep the `apropos' command? :-)

By the way, I agree with Lennart: while (to me) `delete' has
misleading connotations, `remove' is just right.

-- 
Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se>

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Richard Stallman]

    I have some times looked at the doc string for delete-overlay to 
    convince myself that the overlay is not deleted by delete-overlay. It is 
    just removed from the buffer.

    The doc string does not tell that part of the story however. It would be 
    nice if it did.

Would someone please spell this out?

(Note that it is impossible for a Lisp function to make an object
cease to exist.  As long as there are pointers to it, it will exist.)

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Miles Bader]

Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se> writes:
> By the way, I agree with Lennart: while (to me) `delete' has
> misleading connotations, `remove' is just right.

What connotations are those?

[For the most part, "remove" and "delete" are synonyms; I generally try
to always pair add/remove and insert/delete, just to keep things tidy,
but that's just me...]

-Miles
-- 
"Suppose He doesn't give a shit?  Suppose there is a God but He
just doesn't give a shit?"  [George Carlin]

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Miles Bader wrote:
> Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se> writes:
>> By the way, I agree with Lennart: while (to me) `delete' has
>> misleading connotations, `remove' is just right.
> 
> What connotations are those?
> 
> [For the most part, "remove" and "delete" are synonyms; I generally try
> to always pair add/remove and insert/delete, just to keep things tidy,
> but that's just me...]

Since I am non-english I had to consult a dictionary now:

- delete: to eliminate especially by blotting out, cutting out, or erasing
- remove: to change the location, position -- but also to get rid of, 
eliminate

I think the first meaning of "remove" is what our teachers tell us.

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Robert J. Chassell]

"Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>
   Since I am non-english I had to consult a dictionary now:

   ...
   - remove: to change the location, position -- but also to get rid
   of, eliminate

   I think the first meaning of "remove" is what our teachers tell us.

Interesting!  As a native English speaker, the second meaning is
relevant.  I have never heard of the first, although it makes sense
etymologically, as in `move again'!

I would use a word such as `move' or `detach'.

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell                          GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
    bob@rattlesnake.com                         bob@gnu.org
    http://www.rattlesnake.com                  http://www.teak.cc

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Robert J. Chassell writes:

 > Interesting!  As a native English speaker, the second meaning is
 > relevant.  I have never heard of the first, although it makes sense
 > etymologically, as in `move again'!

Actually, I suspect you have: "removal service" (British term, I
think), "cousin once removed", "remove from consideration" (ie,
table), "remove an obstacle", "at a remove" (ie, detached), "remove
that apostate from our presence".  Replace "remove" with "eliminate"
in those phrases, and they become rather more bloodthirsty, don't you
think?

I think the connotation is "moving away" (to somewhere), including the
possibility of moving back.  Delete implies a return is irrelevant, or
perhaps impossible (viz, kill-OBJECT vs delete-OBJECT in Emacs).

Granted the usages are rather idiomatic, at least in American English,
but nonetheless I have to agree with the European consensus that the
connotations are different in a way relevant to the discussion.

 > I would use a word such as `move' or `detach'.

FWIW, XEmacs uses detach for the analogous function, `detach-extent'.
`delete-extent' also exists, which detaches the extent but has
additional semantics.  So I hope that (if the name changes)
`detach-overlay' will be chosen.

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Stuart D. Herring]

> Since I am non-english I had to consult a dictionary now:
>
> - delete: to eliminate especially by blotting out, cutting out, or erasing
> - remove: to change the location, position -- but also to get rid of,
> eliminate

I think it's worth noting that deleting an overlay does in fact "cut it
out" of its buffer, as if it were a patch on fabric.

Davis

-- 
This product is sold by volume, not by mass.  If it appears too dense or
too sparse, it is because mass-energy conversion has occurred during
shipping.

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Stuart D. Herring]

> (Note that it is impossible for a Lisp function to make an object
> cease to exist.  As long as there are pointers to it, it will exist.)

Many objects in Emacs can become "dead", and some of those, once "dead",
can never be used again, or only used again under special circumstances. 
For instance, a marker or overlay in no buffer is dead but revivable, and
a killed buffer is dead forever.  Windows and frames can be revived via
restoring configurations, but cannot be purposefully resurrected, and so
lie somewhere in the middle.

The name `delete-overlay' looks more like the name `kill-buffer' than like
the name `set-marker', although it of course most looks like the names
`delete-window' and `delete-frame', which fall in the middle.  This, I
believe, is the source of (some of) the confusion.  I don't suppose that
anything but providing careful documentation can be done about it now, but
it's worth noting in order to better understand misunderstandings.

Davis

-- 
This product is sold by volume, not by mass.  If it appears too dense or
too sparse, it is because mass-energy conversion has occurred during
shipping.

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Miles Bader]

"Stuart D. Herring" <herring@lanl.gov> writes:
> Many objects in Emacs can become "dead", and some of those, once "dead",
> can never be used again, or only used again under special circumstances. 

I think such objects are oddities -- they typically work that way
because there's some external resource whose state cannot be revived.

-Miles

-- 
"Suppose He doesn't give a shit?  Suppose there is a God but He
just doesn't give a shit?"  [George Carlin]

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Richard Stallman]

    - remove: to change the location, position -- but also to get rid of, 
    eliminate

    I think the first meaning of "remove" is what our teachers tell us.

That meaning is somewhat obsolete; I am always surprised when I see
the word used that way.

Re: Remove delete-overlay?

[Richard Stallman]

I do not want to change the name of this function.