From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: un-deprecating CL Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:06:47 -0400 Message-ID: References: <864phxjj03.fsf@macs.hw.ac.uk> <87hclx834d.fsf@red-bean.com> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1189879648 23483 80.91.229.12 (15 Sep 2007 18:07:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 18:07:28 +0000 (UTC) Cc: kfogel@red-bean.com, jbw@macs.hw.ac.uk, dto@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Sep 15 20:07:24 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IWc3A-0001NY-0H for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 15 Sep 2007 20:07:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IWc39-0005Cb-05 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:07:23 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IWc36-0005CW-Uw for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:07:20 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IWc35-0005AK-Fg for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:07:20 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IWc35-0005AG-Dl for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:07:19 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IWc35-0008Lm-2J for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:07:19 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IWc2Z-0007VE-73; Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:06:47 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Eli Zaretskii on Sat, 15 Sep 2007 11:00:16 +0300) X-Detected-Kernel: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:78975 Archived-At: We often add functions to the standard Emacs name space. Often we add individual CL facilities to it. If the function has a simple name, which doesn't start with the name of its Lisp program, that function should be documented in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual. I don't like the idea of documenting all the CL facilities there. I don't want to declare them standard without documenting them, either. An additional reason why I don't want to make them standard parts of Emacs Lisp is that the CL style of calling conventions does not really fit with the spirit of Emacs Lisp. Thus, CL is available for users to use, but not a standard part of the name space. One possible alternative is to define these functions with a cl- prefix, and for callers to use that prefix. That gets rid of the namespace issue. And if we think of them as internal parts of some Lisp package, they would not have to be in the Lisp Manual. The only remaining drawback would be that code which uses them may be somewhat harder to understand, for many users, because they will use constructs not in the Lisp Manual. That drawback exists now for the CL macros in programs that load CL at compile time. Perhaps the right thing is to move several commonly used CL constructs into the standard namespace and document them in the manual.