From: Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>
To: "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com>
Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: sending function arguments to recursive function calls
Date: Mon, 20 May 2013 23:31:40 +0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87obc5v46b.fsf@yandex.ru> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <878v3aofcy.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> (Pascal J. Bourguignon's message of "Sun, 19 May 2013 22:59:41 +0200")
"Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> writes:
> Then you meant to write:
>
> bar
>
> not:
>
> baz
>
Right. Sorry.
>> It's ugly because this kind of code is hard to reason about and,
>> consequently, hard to modify. Suppose I want to rewrite `foo' (and
>> suppose it's longer than this one line).
>
> Yes. That's why you should adopt the CL convention of naming all the
> special variables (those with dynamic binding) with stars:
>
I agree it's a good convention in CL (and Clojure), but Elisp has its
own convention: name the variable starting with the package prefix.
Until we have real modularity, it should be good enough.
>> Can I rename `bar' to something else?
>
> Yes. You should name it *bar*, and declare it special locally. Right,
> for now (declare (special *bar*)) has no effect in emacs lisp since it's
> the default, but it states your intent!
Yes, I think, currently only byte-compiler looks at it, and warns the
user when it sees undeclared variables.
>> No idea: to be absolutely sure,
>> I have to search the definitions of all functions that `foo' calls,
>> and if I find a `bar' reference in any of them, I'll now have to
>> search for any other functions that call them, etc. IOW, this makes
>> for terrible composability.
>
> Definitely. That's why the default is lexical binding, and you have to
> declare specially variables with dynamic binding, either with declare
> special, or globally with defvar or defparameter.
>
>
>> The behavior is ugly because it allows the code to be written this way.
>>
>> A worse example is when `bar' is one of the arguments to `foo' (ugh).
>
> Global or local special declarations are still possible, even for
> parameters.
...in CL, right? Your earmuff example didn't work for me in Emacs with
lexical-binding t, `(declare (special *bar*))' doesn't replace the need
for `defvar'ing it.
I'm not sure how I feel about special local variables and parameters.
The problem with tracking down callers/callees graph applies to both of
these types, as far as I can tell, so each local variable of this kind
might as well be declared global.
During the few years I've been using Emacs, I think I've only used the
ability to change the value of a parameter in a caller function once,
deep inside the Helm codebase. Sure enough, in a few months, the caller
function code has changed, and my function broke.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2013-05-20 19:31 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 21+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2013-05-04 13:01 sending function arguments to recursive function calls Gauthier Östervall
2013-05-04 15:30 ` Drew Adams
2013-05-07 11:25 ` Gauthier Östervall
2013-05-07 14:04 ` Drew Adams
2013-05-08 12:21 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-05-09 8:35 ` Gauthier Östervall
2013-05-09 12:23 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-05-12 13:19 ` Gauthier Östervall
2013-05-13 14:55 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-05-17 12:20 ` Gauthier Östervall
2013-05-17 12:26 ` Dmitry Gutov
2013-05-17 14:31 ` Drew Adams
2013-05-19 16:57 ` Dmitry Gutov
2013-05-21 16:34 ` Drew Adams
[not found] ` <mailman.70.1368982677.22516.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2013-05-19 20:59 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2013-05-20 19:31 ` Dmitry Gutov [this message]
[not found] ` <mailman.94.1369078320.22516.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2013-05-20 19:55 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2013-05-07 14:32 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
[not found] ` <mailman.25279.1367935468.855.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2013-05-07 14:55 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2013-05-08 12:25 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-05-05 1:22 ` Stefan Monnier
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