Re: [PATCH] Renaming non-X x_* identifiers

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2019 08:55:38 -0400
> 
> I was thinking about it from the point of the view of maintenance rather
> than efficiency: it removes the need to know which slots might be NULL
> (and hence require a test) and which not, so it should simplify
> the code.

I'm not sure this simplification is for the better.  It makes
_writing_ the code easier, but it gets in the way of _reading_ it,
because one must go and see what the hook does, especially when
investigating some issue for a configuration where the hook makes no
sense.  This is C, not Lisp, so it's usually impossible to eval
something on the spot and see that the hook points to some function
whose name talks for itself.  You must fire up a debugger, stop it at
the right place, and only then you know.  I find this less convenient
than just reading the source, it feels like a C++ program, not a C
program.