Re: elisp's cl package. Don't understand the notice about eval-when-compile

[Xah Lee <xahlee@gmail.com>]

Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com> writes:
> > in emacs lisp's CL package documentation “(info "(cl)Overview")”, it
> > has this passage:
>
> >    *Please note:* the "CL" functions are not standard parts of the
> > Emacs Lisp name space, so it is legitimate for users to define them
> > with other, conflicting meanings.  To avoid conflicting with those
> > user
> > activities, we have a policy that packages installed in Emacs must not
> > load "CL" at run time.  (It is ok for them to load "CL" at compile
> > time
> > only, with `eval-when-compile', and use the macros it provides.)  If
> > you are writing packages that you plan to distribute and invite
> > widespread use for, you might want to observe the same rule.
>
> > I don't quite understand it.

On Mar 25, 3:02 am, "Thomas F. Burdick" <tburd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> No. It's saying that if you are trying to get your package included in
> the official Emacs distribution, you can only use macros from cl.el,
> not functions.

Ok, after spent some 30 min starting to write a reply with much more
confusion, i think i understand this now and i think this is the best
explanation. Thanks.

though, there's still the practical question of which ones are macros.
There doesn't seem to have a clear list.

basically, my concern here is practical one. I want to use some
functionalities in cl, but need to know which i can use etc. So, if
programers using cl for their packages for public, they need to have a
list of exactly what they can use.

... after some 10 min thinking and reading the cl doc, at this point i
guess i don't have a question... i guess a clear list of macro isn't
there because the whole thing is rather complex... the cl package is
rather more for CL programers coming to elisp as opposed to simply a
extra library of useful functions...

here's some more confusion i have...

For example, when i do describe-function on “pop”, it says:
«pop is a Lisp macro in `subr.el'.»

but after loading cl, it says:
«pop is a Lisp macro in `cl.el'.»

So, it appears, cl package also shadow elisp symbols (apparantly they
are the same thing, but if so, why there's one in still in cl when
already moved to elisp?).

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄