Re: Changes in revision 114466

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net>
> Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:29:26 +0200
> Cc: Xue Fuqiao <xfq.free@gmail.com>, Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@gnu.org>,
> 	emacs-devel <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> 
>    [These functions/variables are] not meant to be used by other
>    packages [, which] means that something defined with "--" can
>    completely change (or disappear) from one release to the other.
> 
> This suggests that developers who use them should be working on the
> package they are in, hence reading and using the code and commentary of
> that package.  In contrast, documentation for developers is, I think,
> aimed at explaining the code's public interface to use in developing
> other packages, not its private, internal only interface (at least the
> documentation in the manual; such functions/variables could have doc
> strings).

Indeed.  The ELisp manual is aimed primarily at a Lisp programmer who
develops Lisp programs, not necessarily Emacs per se.  Someone who
develops Emacs can rarely stay at the Lisp level for too long, so the
documentation needed by Emacs developers should have a radically
different orientation, and include information we currently don't have
anywhere except in the comments.

It is a good idea to have such documentation for Emacs developers, but
no one stepped forward to do the job (which is not trivial).