On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 10:42 AM, Thorsten Jolitz wrote: > Stefan Monnier writes: > > >> as a second take on this topic, I would like to make the attached > >> proposal for improving the conventions for structuring Emacs Lisp > >> source-code files: When picking up discussions like this one that have been dormant for many months it is helpful to follow up to the original thread or provide a link to the earlier discussion to make it easier for people to refresh their memories or acquaint themselves with where the discussion left off: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2013-04/msg00263.html > >> 2.2.1 Last Line Pathology > >> ------------------------- > > > > This is a very minor issue, I think. It's trivil to fix it by simply > > ignoring any "trailing header". > Can't the existing tools be modified to accept both, a trailing header > or a trailing comment? It might seem like a very minor issue, but its a > symptom for a not so minor issue - incorrect headline tree-structure. Most of your arguments seem to be predicated on the incorrect assumption that "^;;; Text" can /only/ indicate a first-level headline. The manual page at (info "(elisp) Comment Tips") begins with the text "We recommend these conventions for comments:" and goes on to describe several uses for comments of the above form, of which headlines are but one. Using such comments in any of these ways is perfectly legitimate, not an indication of "pathology" or even incorrect. That same manual page also describes how to cause outline-minor-mode to refrain from considering certain of these comments as headings, namely to follow the semicolons by two or more spaces.