From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Decoded time accessors Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2019 17:41:39 +0300 Message-ID: <835zoc7fmk.fsf@gnu.org> References: <20190707214326.GD4053@ACM> Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="152881"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" Cc: larsi@gnus.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Alan Mackenzie Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jul 08 16:47:24 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1hkUvI-000d7B-CT for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 08 Jul 2019 16:47:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42302 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.86_2) (envelope-from ) id 1hkUqE-0004TL-2D for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 08 Jul 2019 10:42:06 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:45457) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.86_2) (envelope-from ) id 1hkUq7-0004T5-Jm for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 08 Jul 2019 10:42:01 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:58351) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hkUq6-0001Zi-Hf; Mon, 08 Jul 2019 10:41:58 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=2231 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1hkUq5-0006aX-0l; Mon, 08 Jul 2019 10:41:57 -0400 In-reply-to: <20190707214326.GD4053@ACM> (message from Alan Mackenzie on Sun, 7 Jul 2019 21:43:26 +0000) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:238405 Archived-At: > Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2019 21:43:26 +0000 > From: Alan Mackenzie > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org > > My limited experience of this is that people don't bother to write the > necessary doc strings, or don't bother to write them properly, so one is > left guessing at the precise semantics. For example the doc string for > `file-attribute-size' is poor, whereas the doc string for > `file-attribute' is better, though still not perfect. To understand the > former, one must read _both_ doc strings. This is not a win. Can you tell more about your example? AFAICT, file-attribute-size just repeats what file-attributes says about its 7th element, nothing more, nothing less. What is missing from the doc string of the former that requires you to read the latter? > I disagree. All these "readability hacks" greatly increase the number > of functions a hacker must cope with I think "must" hear is inaccurate, because you can still reference the original list by element numbers. Only those who want it will use the accessors.