cl-generic misdesign (was: Poor quality documentation in edebug.el, and recursive documentation)

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

Hi Madhu,

> Unfortunately we need to know because we have to deal with your
> misdesign of those features and language constructs.

Always looking forward to your kind words.

> Redefinitions of cl-generics are not possible.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are problems in this area, indeed, but
"not possible" doesn't match my experience:

    ELISP> (cl-defgeneric sm-foo (a))
    :autoload-end
    ELISP> (cl-defmethod sm-foo ((a (eql 1))) 2)
    sm-foo
    ELISP> (sm-foo 1)
    2 (#o2, #x2, ?\C-b)
    ELISP> (cl-defmethod sm-foo ((a (eql 1))) 3)
    sm-foo
    ELISP> (sm-foo 1)
    3 (#o3, #x3, ?\C-c)
    ELISP>

> I have repeatedly come across code that uses these features you have
> introduced, which get into debug situations where emacs cannot be
> debugged but needs be killed.

Sounds like a bug or a misfeature, indeed.

> I have cases (related debbug) when edbug is essentially unusable and
> worse it is so *by your design*.

I don't know what you're referring to.  Could you point to those debbugs?

> There isnt any way to submit patches to your code.

I don't think cl-generic.el is more magical than the rest of Emacs, so
`M-x report-emacs-bug` should work to submit patches.  At least I can't
see how `M-x report-emacs-bug` could fail to submit a patch just because
it's about cl-generic.el.


        Stefan