what is the convention for `info' and `Info'?

what is the convention for `info' and `Info'?

[Drew Adams]

Library info.el has a mix of vars, faces, and functions with names that begin
with `info' or `Info'.  What is the convention here - when to use one or the
other?  There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or (non-hysterical) reason.

There are internal vars and user options that use `Info'.  All defvars except
`info-tool-bar-map' use `Info' (53/54).  All defcustoms use `Info'.  But all
deffaces (which are also for user customization) use `info'.

There are commands that use `info' and commands that use `Info'.  Perhaps the
intended difference here is commands within *info* and commands to be used
anywhere (?).  Similarly, there are non-interactive functions that use one or
the other.

This cannot, AFAICT, be helpful to users (or to maintainers, for that matter).

RE: what is the convention for `info' and `Info'?

[Drew Adams]

Resending - no response.  Can one of the maintainers speak to this?  What is the
intention/design/convention?

> Library info.el has a mix of vars, faces, and functions with 
> names that begin with `info' or `Info'.  What is the convention
> here - when to use one or the other?  There doesn't seem to be
> any rhyme or (non-hysterical) reason.
> 
> There are internal vars and user options that use `Info'.  
> All defvars except `info-tool-bar-map' use `Info' (53/54).
> All defcustoms use `Info'.  But all
> deffaces (which are also for user customization) use `info'.
> 
> There are commands that use `info' and commands that use 
> `Info'.  Perhaps the intended difference here is commands
> within *info* and commands to be used anywhere (?).
> Similarly, there are non-interactive functions that use one or
> the other.
> 
> This cannot, AFAICT, be helpful to users (or to maintainers, 
> for that matter).

RE: what is the convention for `info' and `Info'?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Drew Adams writes:
 > Resending - no response.  Can one of the maintainers speak to this?  What is the
 > intention/design/convention?
 > 
 > > Library info.el has a mix of vars, faces, and functions with 
 > > names that begin with `info' or `Info'.  What is the convention
 > > here - when to use one or the other?  There doesn't seem to be
 > > any rhyme or (non-hysterical) reason.

Dunno about rhyme, but somewhere in space-time there is a comment to
the effect that use of the usual prefix capitalized reduces the number
of completions you have to deal with.  Thus commands that are bound to
a key sequence and unlikely to be used with M-x have the prefix
capitalized.

Whether this consideration is still relevant I have no opinion, except
that the only Info command I use with M-x is Info-goto-node (which is
quite useful as an @ref in code, too).  But there was a reason at one
time.

Re: what is the convention for `info' and `Info'?

[PJ Weisberg]

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 2:57 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:

> Dunno about rhyme, but somewhere in space-time there is a comment to
> the effect that use of the usual prefix capitalized reduces the number
> of completions you have to deal with.  Thus commands that are bound to
> a key sequence and unlikely to be used with M-x have the prefix
> capitalized.

s/reduces the number of completions you have to deal with/makes some
of the functions harder to find if you don't know they're there/

-PJ

Re: what is the convention for `info' and `Info'?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

PJ Weisberg writes:
 > On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 2:57 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
 > 
 > > Dunno about rhyme, but somewhere in space-time there is a comment to
 > > the effect that use of the usual prefix capitalized reduces the number
 > > of completions you have to deal with.  Thus commands that are bound to
 > > a key sequence and unlikely to be used with M-x have the prefix
 > > capitalized.
 > 
 > s/reduces the number of completions you have to deal with/makes some
 > of the functions harder to find if you don't know they're there/

Not even the Emacs developers are perverse enough to consider that a
reason *for* doing something.

Re: what is the convention for `info' and `Info'?

[Juri Linkov]

> There are commands that use `info' and commands that use `Info'.  Perhaps the
> intended difference here is commands within *info* and commands to be used
> anywhere (?).

I don't know what was intended by the original authors of info.el,
but I see the same pattern: `Info-' for commands within *info*
and `info-' for commands used anywhere.

> This cannot, AFAICT, be helpful to users (or to maintainers, for that matter).

It would be less helpful to users to rename them now to follow
another convention.

Re: what is the convention for `info' and `Info'?

[Richard Stallman]

    I don't know what was intended by the original authors of info.el,
    but I see the same pattern: `Info-' for commands within *info*
    and `info-' for commands used anywhere.

I think the idea was so that the `Info-' commands would not get in the
way of completion when you type `info-'.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
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Boston MA 02110
USA
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