From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Bugs in newly added completion capabilities. Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:42:15 -0400 Message-ID: References: <200506280227.j5S2Rln23310@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <200506290350.j5T3o7c25749@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <200506300229.j5U2TrL01627@raven.dms.auburn.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1120153539 20521 80.91.229.2 (30 Jun 2005 17:45:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:45:39 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Luc Teirlinck , rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jun 30 19:45:37 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Do35L-000487-Pd for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 19:44:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Do3Dd-0002WQ-Qt for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:52:57 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Do39A-0000GC-Kc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:48:21 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Do398-0000Eu-53 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:48:18 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Do393-00006E-Ji for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:48:14 -0400 Original-Received: from [132.204.24.67] (helo=mercure.iro.umontreal.ca) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1Do38K-0002uD-AH; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:47:28 -0400 Original-Received: from hidalgo.iro.umontreal.ca (hidalgo.iro.umontreal.ca [132.204.27.50]) by mercure.iro.umontreal.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id 577182CF51E; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:42:22 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from asado.iro.umontreal.ca (asado.iro.umontreal.ca [132.204.24.84]) by hidalgo.iro.umontreal.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id A36AA4AC00A; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:42:15 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: by asado.iro.umontreal.ca (Postfix, from userid 20848) id 86C37E6A42; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:42:15 -0400 (EDT) Original-To: Miles Bader In-Reply-To: (Miles Bader's message of "Thu, 30 Jun 2005 16:50:58 +0900") User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-DIRO-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-DIRO-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-DIRO-MailScanner-SpamCheck: n'est pas un polluriel, SpamAssassin (score=-4.846, requis 5, autolearn=not spam, AWL 0.05, BAYES_00 -4.90) X-MailScanner-From: monnier@iro.umontreal.ca 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:39963 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:39963 >> Yes, but let me first make sure I understand. Is the reason that we >> do not want _any_ symbol as car of the list that forbidding _any_ >> symbol as car of the list actually seems _more natural_ than just >> forbidding lambda? It seems that any symbol other than lambda can not >> be mistaken for the car of an anonymous lambda expresion and hence >> could not lead to ambiguity. > One possible reason is that if we allow almost all symbol lists, people > will tend to overlook the need for a `lambda' special case, write their > code to use straight-forward symbol lists -- and odd bugs will arise > when lambda does happen to occur at the beginning of such a list. > Always requiring an initial "" forces the problem to be dealt with, so > will make such code more robust. I don't like the idea of changing assoc-string to also match symbols. Maybe it won't lead to any catastrophe, but it just sounds wrong. I don't like the idea of adding "" at the beginning of a completion table. Here I have a good reason, which is that it changes the behavior: (try-completion "" '("aaa" "aab" "aac")) => "aa" (try-completion "" '("" "aaa" "aab" "aac")) => "" Honestly, what's so great about being able to use lists of symbols rather than lists of strings? In Emacs-21, we don't even allow lists of strings, but only lists of pairs whose car is a string, and people haven't complained about it. Stefan