Re: Including some functions from dash.el in Emacs?

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

> I think that using cl-lib only to filter a list shows that something is
> missing from the language.  To me it is also weird to use prefixed
> functions for basic features like "cl-remove-if" and "cl-reduce".

The real problem indeed is one of naming and coherence.
It would be nice to group all list functions under the "list-" prefix,
for example.

The main benefit I see of the dash.el library is that it tries to
provide a coherent set of names (and functionality).

But it falls into the trap of having a "too attractive" very short
prefix, so it goes on and adds things unrelated to lists (e.g. the
threading macros, the when-lets, the function combinators).

> Please understand that I'm only willing to understand the reason behind
> this and why adding some of this functions wouldn't modernize and
> improve Elisp.

Just because something has existed for a long time doesn't mean it's
bad, so "modernizing" is pretty low on my priority list.

But yes, Elisp's "core" functions suffer from lots of irregularities,
and getting rid of them would be an improvement.  E.g.:
- Merging the various `get', `window-parameter', `process-get', ...
- Merge nth, aref, and elt.
- Group related functions under one prefix (e.g. for lists).


        Stefan