On 1/4/07, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:

> We should not worry about it because 1) it is unlikely to occur

Agreed.

> and 2) if it
> occurs, the consequences are not great

Agreed.

> and the effect will be seen soon enough.

Not agreed (it's not always evident that a variable is a user
variable, unless you look for it).

> Unless we're worrying about modifying doc strings by program, which you said
> you're not talking about here, I don't think there is a problem with saying
> only that any doc string that starts with an asterisk indicates a
> `set-variable' target.

I'm not talking about modifying docstrings by program, right now. But
I think the gist of Michaël's idea is good (for post-22.1): that
describe-variable should remove the asterisk (that's an implementation
artifact, and has no place in documentation), and indicate when a
variable is a user variable; it already says "You can customize this
variable" for defcustoms, doesn't it?

So, it's not only about "**text*..." cases, but also "*text*..." where
the user-variable'ness is unintended.

> I.e., I need to try to understand what you are saying, and it is what you
> mean that needs to be convincing to me, not just the words you use to convey
> it. I will try better to get your meaning.

Well, don't take too seriously my previous comment, please. :)

> That's obvious, perhaps, but I never imagined that an entire conversation
> could be conducted that way. Lisp cum lingua franca!

I'm not surprised Lisp is useful for that. It's the most expressive
programming language I've ever used (and comments do help... :)

                    /L/e/k/t/u