Re: Interest in "Elisp lint"-like tool?

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>]

>>> Some of these style choices seem fairly uncontroversial (like making
>>> sure `provide' is at the end of the file)
>> It is not always possible though (to avoid recursive requires is the
>> usual reason).
> Haha, bad choice of "uncontroversial" example, then! ;)

No, not at all.  It's just that for many of the conventions we'd like to
follow, there are cases where it's impractical to follow them.
So, while some may really be enforced and should generate a clear "you
need to fix this", the others should signal a gentler reminder.
I fully agree (and I think Glenn does too) that provide should be at the
end of the file, but I also agree that sometimes it's inconvenient to
do so.

Ideally, for every possible convention-warning (except for those which
should hopefully always be followed such as ";;; file --- description"),
there should be a way to write the code such that the warning is
silenced.  In the worst case, with the use of a comment or some other
explicit annotation.


        Stefan