From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Is Emacs very alive, active and improving? Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 09:09:37 +0300 Message-ID: <83vc2nemla.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87r4ddo4yp.fsf@nl106-137-194.student.uu.se> <87d2oww758.fsf@nl106-137-194.student.uu.se> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1377842996 12735 80.91.229.3 (30 Aug 2013 06:09:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 06:09:56 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Aug 30 08:09:57 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@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 1VFHu9-0004E0-Nk for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 30 Aug 2013 08:09:57 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47499 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VFHu8-0001uT-Tm for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 30 Aug 2013 02:09:56 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:43301) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VFHtt-0001u4-CU for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 30 Aug 2013 02:09:47 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VFHtn-0000Bm-IE for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 30 Aug 2013 02:09:41 -0400 Original-Received: from mtaout20.012.net.il ([80.179.55.166]:40117) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VFHtn-0000Be-AA for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 30 Aug 2013 02:09:35 -0400 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout20.012.net.il by a-mtaout20.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0MSB00A00YDHHM00@a-mtaout20.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 30 Aug 2013 09:09:33 +0300 (IDT) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([87.69.4.28]) by a-mtaout20.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0MSB00ALEYFXG040@a-mtaout20.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 30 Aug 2013 09:09:33 +0300 (IDT) In-reply-to: <87d2oww758.fsf@nl106-137-194.student.uu.se> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.166 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:93171 Archived-At: > From: Emanuel Berg > Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 22:53:14 +0200 > > Ha ha, no, let's keep "self-documenting". To me, that *sounds* > like "you don't have to write documentation, Emacs does that for > you, all the while you extend Emacs", but I never was fool enough > to believe that (for Emacs, or any system), so I thought it was > just an exaggeration of the docstring etc. functionality It's not an exaggeration, and Emacs produces some minimal documentation even if the programmer didn't provide any doc string. It tells you the argument list and the file in which the function or variable is defined, providing hyperlinks to that definition. The 'apropos' family of functions, most of which do not depend on doc strings, also automatically reacts to changes in the code.