From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2020 22:04:00 +0300 Message-ID: <83lfjihskf.fsf@gnu.org> References: <20200712184908.13140.5739@vcs0.savannah.gnu.org> <20200712184909.BBC61209B1@vcs0.savannah.gnu.org> <7bf4d6ef-c0ec-43dc-ad5d-f6e81422ad90@yandex.ru> <83zh84m5ws.fsf@gnu.org> <3dd1c224-69b2-40af-5b2e-43a310253632@yandex.ru> <83tuybmtxs.fsf@gnu.org> <859f594b-1343-6d26-e1ac-7157c44eb56c@yandex.ru> <83a6zyk4tt.fsf@gnu.org> <6edffb7d-7708-534f-93ad-bf9180f5e0ed@yandex.ru> <835zamjsvk.fsf@gnu.org> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="27661"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: dgutov@yandex.ru, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: John Yates Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Jul 17 21:04:51 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1jwVf7-00074b-Me for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 17 Jul 2020 21:04:49 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57612 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jwVf6-0003wl-PR for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 17 Jul 2020 15:04:48 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:48506) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jwVeX-0003X0-U2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 17 Jul 2020 15:04:13 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:60345) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jwVeW-0001Jx-Ox; Fri, 17 Jul 2020 15:04:12 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=1069 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1jwVeV-0007vh-Df; Fri, 17 Jul 2020 15:04:12 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from John Yates on Fri, 17 Jul 2020 12:56:52 -0400) 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:253045 Archived-At: > From: John Yates > Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2020 12:56:52 -0400 > Cc: Emacs developers , Dmitry Gutov > > I have used emacs for nearly 30 years but have rarely ventured into elisp development much > beyond maintaining my .emacs. So I look to emacs documentation as a user, not a developer. > > OTOH I have been programming for just shy of 50 years. Over that time I have continually > increased the size and scope of projects I could tackle primarily by looking for ways to > build and compose ever better abstractions. Sometimes that has taken the form of adopting > a new programming language, sometimes a new methodology or disciple. > > Conversely, one of the banes of my existence has been leaky abstractions. For better > or worse, based maining on the untyped nature of lisp and its culture of describing how > to interpret structures of various shapes, my overriding impression of the lisp world in > general and of elisp in particular is that they are rife with leaky abstractions. > > I commend Dmitry's desire to provide an opaque abstraction for a project. Sadly, in > this instance I suspect that such an effort is an attempt to swim against an impossibly > strong tide. (If you cannot beat them, join them :-) The issue at hand is not whether or not to use the abstractions. Rather, it is how to use abstractions in a way that doesn't prevent good documentation.