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: Upcoming loss of usability of Emacs source files and Emacs. Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:22:23 -0400 Message-ID: References: <557F3C22.4060909@cs.ucla.edu> <5580D356.4050708@cs.ucla.edu> <87si9qonxb.fsf@gnu.org> <5581C29E.1030101@yandex.ru> <87r3p9fxm2.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87k2v0fiji.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <20150619090225.GA2743@acm.fritz.box> <87fv5kfrfa.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <83twtzhi9g.fsf@gnu.org> <877fqvfvby.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <83fv5jh8ls.fsf@gnu.org> <874mlzf71d.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <558945C2.2010203@yandex.ru> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1435098172 9389 80.91.229.3 (23 Jun 2015 22:22:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 22:22:52 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eggert@cs.ucla.edu, emacs-devel@gnu.org, dgutov@yandex.ru, acm@muc.de, stephen@xemacs.org, eliz@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jun 24 00:22:51 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Z7Waf-0001he-Qr for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:22:49 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47692 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z7Waf-0003El-8C for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:22:49 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:51469) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z7WaO-0003Bh-GZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:22:33 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z7WaN-0003Oz-K8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:22:32 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:49235) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z7WaG-0003Lh-7Q; Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:22:24 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1Z7WaF-0004m3-94; Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:22:23 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Stefan Monnier on Tue, 23 Jun 2015 09:34:33 -0400) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:187455 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > For me the main issue in source code's use of `...' is that > it's ambiguous. It is ambiguous in some cases if parsed by a program. No program needed to parse it until recent changes. There are other easy ways to get rid of the ambiguity. For instance, this To get out of the recursive edit, a command can throw to `exit' -- for instance `(throw 'exit nil)'. can be written as To get out of the recursive edit, a command can throw to `exit': (throw 'exit nil) or as To get out of the recursive edit, a command can throw to `exit' using `throw'. I just looked at the main lisp directory and found no example of a confusing doc string. In lisp/emacs-lisp, the one case in advice.el seems to be the only one. Considering how few of these there are, ANY of these fixes would be an easy solution. Thus, it is better to fix them in local ways that cause no trouble to anyone -- such as the two I've described above -- rather than make a global change. That is especially true if the global change will cause some sort of trouble. I am not sure whether it will, but see my other message. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.