> * https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Association-Lists.html sometimes assoc,
> alist-get, assq, copy-alist. How am I supposed to use `C-h f alist TAB` to discover the function I want? I
> can't, I have to go to that webpage and read it all.

I think "C-h d alist RET" is your friend.

You miss the central point of my argument. The problem is not that the doc is hard to find, it's that I *have* to find it to know which are the related functions.

It is much easier for the mind to think in terms of namespaces, here are examples from other languages:

https://clojure.github.io/clojure/clojure.string-api.html all string functions stored under string
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/cstring/ almost all string manipulation function start with "str"
https://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.4.1/libdoc/fileutils/rdoc/FileUtils.html all file manipulation function are stored in FileUtils::

I could go on but I think you should be able to understand my examples.

Once related functions are namespaced together, almost all tooling benefit from it. No need to provide a manual grouping the unrelated functions together, just document each function:

autocompletion can help you guess the right function.
searching for function names (C-h f) can help you find the right function.

> * https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/List-Elements.html sometimes named
> logically (nth, remove, append), sometimes named after implementation detail (car, cdr), and no grouping
> at all so I can't `C-h f list TAB`

Also, the 'i' command in Info.

But you said you didn't want to read manuals, so I'm not sure why the
examples are from the manual.

Again you strawman my argument. Try to understand my central point, and then reply to that instead of details of "how you do it right now and that works for you".

Kind regards,

Philippe