From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Upcoming loss of usability of Emacs source files and Emacs. Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2015 09:56:56 -0700 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: <55941BD8.6050502@cs.ucla.edu> References: <20150615142237.GA3517@acm.fritz.box> <87y4jkhqh5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <557F3C22.4060909@cs.ucla.edu> <5580D356.4050708@cs.ucla.edu> <87si9qonxb.fsf@gnu.org> <5581C29E.1030101@yandex.ru> <558D6A3D.1070706@yandex.ru> <558DD6EA.4090306@yandex.ru> <558F497A.8050304@yandex.ru> <55926A9E.40901@yandex.ru> <5592A98E.4020407@cs.ucla.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1435769847 16798 80.91.229.3 (1 Jul 2015 16:57:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 16:57:27 +0000 (UTC) To: Andy Moreton , emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jul 01 18:57:17 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 1ZALK0-0008Sm-68 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 18:57:16 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60199 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZALJz-0007bC-GB for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 12:57:15 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:42906) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZALJl-0007av-Sp for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 12:57:02 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZALJi-0003yf-NX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 12:57:01 -0400 Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.68]:42745) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZALJi-0003yT-HH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 12:56:58 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 73F2E1608CE; Wed, 1 Jul 2015 09:56:57 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10032) with ESMTP id ZKP0NPYqwSW5; Wed, 1 Jul 2015 09:56:56 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id CA1E91608D1; Wed, 1 Jul 2015 09:56:56 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at zimbra.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10026) with ESMTP id MFnKA7He5KAi; Wed, 1 Jul 2015 09:56:56 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.9] (pool-100-32-155-148.lsanca.fios.verizon.net [100.32.155.148]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 9B289160840; Wed, 1 Jul 2015 09:56:56 -0700 (PDT) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.7.0 In-Reply-To: X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 131.179.128.68 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:187700 Archived-At: Andy Moreton wrote: > is there a good reason why the > documentation is a string containing escapes rather than a sexp using > the normal quoting mechanisms ? One good reason is inertia. :-) There's a lot of code dealing with docstrings; e.g., they can be in C code as well as in Lisp, and are processed specially by source transformation. That being said, how would the sexps work, and why would they be an improvement? Can you give an example?