From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: florian@fsavigny.de (Florian v. Savigny) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Rationale behind conversion of a nil prefix arg to numeric 1 Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 11:45:28 +0200 Message-ID: <87inu98ipz.fsf@bertrandrussell.Speedport_W_723V_1_40_000> References: <87y437c0qg.fsf@bertrandrussell.Speedport_W_723V_1_40_000> <83oa43d9r8.fsf@gnu.org> <06d4a7f1-f116-fb5c-9bd2-c4d1f98934c9@easy-emacs.de> <83k2ercy5u.fsf@gnu.org> <83bn02cs54.fsf@gnu.org> <83ed1411-dbc1-2fe1-5fe9-4fdc7a4d1b21@online.de> <83shteb26t.fsf@gnu.org> <20160906071015.GB15537@tuxteam.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1473155185 7340 195.159.176.226 (6 Sep 2016 09:46:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:46:25 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Sep 06 11:46:21 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1bhCxP-0001AN-5h for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 06 Sep 2016 11:46:19 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60336 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bhCxM-0003Yb-37 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 06 Sep 2016 05:46:16 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:36914) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bhCwh-0003YL-7V for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Sep 2016 05:45:36 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bhCwc-00028W-Pp for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Sep 2016 05:45:33 -0400 Original-Received: from srv4.ns-domain-hosting.de ([178.63.89.203]:43500) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bhCwc-00027Y-J8 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Sep 2016 05:45:30 -0400 X-No-Relay: not in my network Original-Received: from bertrandrussell.Speedport_W_723V_1_40_000 (p3E9EEF0C.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [62.158.239.12]) by srv4.ns-domain-hosting.de (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 4492F186441 for ; Tue, 6 Sep 2016 11:45:29 +0200 (CEST) In-reply-to: <20160906071015.GB15537@tuxteam.de> (tomas@tuxteam.de) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 178.63.89.203 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:111281 Archived-At: > Alternatively, for Andreas the axiom "the default value is always 0" > holds ;-P I do sympathise with him, because my question started out supposing exactly the same thing. It just seems intuitive that nil translates to the number 0, if any, and when things are intuitive, this is (I think) generally good. It all becomes immediately clear when you understand that the numeric prefix arg has a special purpose, i.e. is conceived as a repeat counter (and NOT simply a number), but only then. In other words, `prefix-arg-as-repeat-counter' might be the kind of name that would be more readily understandable (and would even arguably be more accurate) than `prefix-numeric-value'. --=20 Florian von Savigny Melanchthonstr. 41 33615 Bielefeld