Why '`C-h f' now reports previously-autoloaded functions as "autoloaded"'

Why '`C-h f' now reports previously-autoloaded functions as "autoloaded"'

[Leo Liu]

I have been trying to get used to this feature since 24.2.90 and I have
found it worse than previous behaviour. What is the rationale behind the
change?

In my use case, all autoloads (i.e. important public entries of a
package) are generated automatically and not hand written. I used to
quickly check, say C-h f ZZZ-mode (I cannot remember/care all the
autoloads in a package but those 2 or 3 important ones) to see if it has
been loaded after modifying its variables (some of them might need set
before package is loaded). The new behaviour leaves me clueless.

Leo

Re: Why '`C-h f' now reports previously-autoloaded functions as "autoloaded"'

[Stefan Monnier]

> I have been trying to get used to this feature since 24.2.90 and I have
> found it worse than previous behaviour. What is the rationale behind the
> change?

So you can tell whether you need to `require' its package before
calling it.


        Stefan

Re: Why '`C-h f' now reports previously-autoloaded functions as "autoloaded"'

[Leo Liu]

On 2013-01-12 21:11 +0800, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> So you can tell whether you need to `require' its package before
> calling it.

But then we lose the ability to tell whether the package has been loaded
or not, which is also important information.

Leo

Re: Why '`C-h f' now reports previously-autoloaded functions as "autoloaded"'

[Stefan Monnier]

>> So you can tell whether you need to `require' its package before
>> calling it.
> But then we lose the ability to tell whether the package has been loaded
> or not, which is also important information.

We tend to consider it less important to know if it's already been
loaded or not, since the package may have been loaded as a side-effect
of various things (e.g. C-h f itself might very likely have loaded the
package if it wasn't loaded already).

Maybe it would help if you could tell us more concretely why you want to
know if a package is loaded.


        Stefan