Re: master 72b1379f079: Increase `emacs-lisp-docstring-fill-column` to 72

[Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com>]

Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net> writes:

> I don't think these two things are comparable.  The change to register
> commands affected users' workflows, i.e. the keypresses they make by
> habit after many years of usage.  Having a change like that appear
> suddenly is kind of like finding a new pothole in a road one travels
> every day (although one that shouldn't require a paving machine to
> fix, being Emacs).
>
> Having symbol docstrings be 8 characters wider will probably not
> affect many users negatively.  I'm sure there are a few who have their
> windows precisely limited to the necessary width; if possible, it
> would be good to make it easy for them to keep such configuration with
> pleasant results.

The distinction to bear in mind is that users of registers are
outnumbered overwhelmingly by readers of doc strings, and thus even a
minor change to the format of doc strings will impact more people than a
change to the mechanics of saving and restoring registers, even though
doc strings are not as frequently the subject of active interaction.

> But should that keep the docstrings at 64 characters wide forever?
> And are we to vote on such changes across the whole user population?
> This seems like the kind of change that the maintainers are to make
> using their best judgment.

The rhetorical implications of these two questions take an absolute
stance on the relation between change and debate, which is not helpful.
What I would have liked to see was neither a categorical dismissal of
the change, nor an exhaustive and involved plebiscite of the entire
user-base, but an opportunity for interested individuals to have brought
their viewpoints to the table before the change was installed.

> I don't agree.  While I don't feel strongly either way, as one who
> frequently writes new docstrings, the arbitrary limit is felt.  One
> often must resort to awkward wording or abbreviated variable names to
> fit within it.  And if one doesn't do so, one can't get a clean
> linting pass.  Meanwhile, any window in my Emacs sessions that
> displays a help buffer has many columns of blank space to the right of
> the docstrings. And the existing limit is far from being too wide to
> be read comfortably.

Whether that is true or not, raising the limit by 8 characters creates
very little improvement in all of these respects.  Even the worst of
modern displays can guarantee Emacs 80 columns of space, so it is not a
convincing compromise, and cannot be described except as an arbitrary
choice.

However, the more important issue is that such a discussion as we are
having now should have predated the installation of the change, and my
attempt to initiate one after the change should not have been answered
by an ultimatum eliminating all but the least feasible option.

> I'm not sure how to interpret your characterization of the thread I
> posted on Reddit.  For the record, I was not being critical of the
> Emacs development process; I was suggesting to users that, unless they
> want to actively participate in the Emacs development process (i.e. by
> faithfully reporting bugs that are discovered in unreleased versions),
> they should use released versions of Emacs; and that they should
> definitely use only released versions of Emacs when reporting bugs to
> package developers, because otherwise I can't try to reproduce the
> reported problems without running such an unreleased version myself.
>
> Then, as usual, the discussion went its own way, largely
> misinterpreting my initial comment, but that's Reddit (and life).

I was not attempting to interpret your words, but to explain what
factors, IMHO, gave rise to the generally hostile nature of the
responses it received, so please don't regard it as any reflection on
yourself.

> They seem somewhat comparable in that they are displayed similarly in
> Emacs buffers and are wrapped to a certain width.  One could ask why
> their appearances shouldn't be more consistent.

The proper time for asking that question was when both formats were
still being designed.  Consistency is a far cry from an end in itself,
and the only ends here are aesthetic in nature.