Re: :alnum: broken?

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

> Don't assume that the user compiles his .el files,

I don't.  I only know that some do, and that compiler warnings reach at
least these people.

> for starts, implement the warnings on the interpreter too.

The interpreter is often not a convenient place since it can't pin point
the origin of the code, because adding checks there slows down
execution, because in many cases the interpreter doesn't have enough
info to perform the needed checks efficiently (e.g. it'd be hard/costly
to figure out if a variable is unused), because such warnings will tend
to be repeated many many times since the code is likely to be executed
many many times, ... (and because it won't catch problems in code that's
been compiled ;-).

> Show a prompt or prominent notice about the presence of the warnings
> (similar to what is shown when the init files has errors).

When/where?  My best hope for non-compiling authors is that they use
tools like flymake which let them see the byte-compiler's warnings even
when the user doesn't compile the file.

> Ignore files which are likely authored by package writers (a good hint
> consists on containing a `provide' or living on certain
> directories).

On the contrary, these are the people I mostly care to reach.


        Stefan