From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Code for cond* Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2024 22:16:28 -0500 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="38498"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sun Feb 25 04:16:47 2024 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1re50Q-0009nd-CT for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 25 Feb 2024 04:16:46 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1re50C-0007EZ-Bw; Sat, 24 Feb 2024 22:16:32 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1re50A-0007EN-Po for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 24 Feb 2024 22:16:31 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1re509-0002YX-3f; Sat, 24 Feb 2024 22:16:30 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=Date:References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From: mime-version; bh=sv8TrMISGV0EbgevN+CXsuU9f9qnZVOxvRcTGcrmEeQ=; b=WT0japX5ywzZ EIDuq+4tYtTlT8qZhkOJJiBG7rG2Gr9XxRm6TmoggXz7qRjSyNU2ECtJ6aEYACOrnd/GOMTBi44Ff HoOELNes8Zj2R/F2+hXYwcyIzU8pIDnjCNwQ4WnjEl7SXPrw6PdG3HGNGaez4FvjddvyaV6DKWAtR rNyAI3t25TWno4sNuGXyNeq4egLSuWVjDDv+TthoHJvrXFDriq3vD0VWcQl34SwLv4/Ou2amCZ95Y 1nj1gALdtgNonsjXEEbz2NyBYvne1wXeJPcecIwAZ28G7R5fteQfxWOfcSGaPGOaiBW5i0mK7LSH0 Khhg40OettzpokAXzWUPlQ==; Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1re508-0004MC-59; Sat, 24 Feb 2024 22:16:28 -0500 In-Reply-To: (message from Stefan Monnier on Fri, 23 Feb 2024 08:39:00 -0500) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:316502 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. ]]] > > > Your syntax (FUN VAR ARGS...) has two disadvantages in my view: > > > - It fixes the argument to be checked as the first argument. > > > - It does not syntactically distinguish the VAR from the normal > > > arguments, making a bit too magical for my taste. > > I think this is not a real disadvantage. > What makes you think so? > I doubt you'd consider coders' confusion as a feature, so what makes you > think people won't find it confusing (and/or get confused, even when > they may not realize it's confusing)? It is less unnatural than the pcase patterns for the same things, such as `pred', so I think any confusion from it will be mild. > Of course, there remains the question whether this usage should be > the one that gets the privilege of not needing a dedicated > "keyword", i.e. to allowing using it without the surrounding `pred`. I expect this to be frequent, so people will get used to it. Thus. the cost of learning it will be distributed across many uses, and users will appreciate the brevity often. -- Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org) Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)