Re: interactive spec with reasonable numbers for c-u

[Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org>]

Samuel Wales wrote:

> example of old ny code that sets prefix acc number

Maybe it's 4 because with 1, 2, 3 ... and even 2, 4, 8 ... it
doesn't happen quickly enough to move thru stuff and move
point around a buffer. For 2, you might as well hit the
ordinary key well - two times! which is probably as fast
or faster.

So maybe here Emacs is just (an awesome) text editor?

As for setting it to whatever as you do in your code, I don't
see how it matters what it is based on as long as it isn't the
same for different inputs? You check and set to something
else anyway.

It would be interesting to hear the historical background ...
Maybe it's in the document "Evolution of Emacs Lisp" but not
necessarily since it can maybe be considered just an
implementation detail, important as it may, but from the Elisp
(a programming language, specifically a Lisp dialect)
perspective I mean.

There is also a history on Lisp including hardware.

Is there a history of Emacs or better yet, Emacs-like editors?
Maybe the 4 was there before Emacs.

I had URLs to these documents - and more - and also PDFs on my
HDD but unfortunately all was lost when the conapt was
disintegrated during the events now associated with the
finalization of the Jenova project ...

>     (interactive "p")
>     (message "%s arg" arg)
>     ;; no arg -- add region or word to private alist and run
>     ;; c-u -- same with extra
>     ;; c-u c-u -- CLEAR the private alist
>     ;; c-u c-u c-u -- UPDATE the private string or set it to empty
>     (setq prefix
>           (or (and (= arg 1) 'usual)
>            (and (= arg 4) 'extra)
>            (and (= arg 16) 'clear)
>            (and (= arg 64) 'update)))
>     (message "%s prefix" prefix)

That code can be improved, but if you'd care to include the
whole function first ...

-- 
underground experts united
https://dataswamp.org/~incal