Re: cannot understand Elisp manual node Glyphs

[storm@cua.dk (Kim F. Storm)]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> We could replace the display table feature with a feature to just
> specify a face for highlighting a character code.  Or, if it is
> important to be able to replace it with a different character code,
> we could use (CHAR . FACE).

Isn't that exactly what the display table is all about (with the
addition of the "extra slots").

And yes, (CHAR . FACE) is exactly what I had in mind for the Emacs 23
implementation of make-glyph-code, glyph-char, and glyph-face.


The exact reason I would add make-glyph-code, glyph-face and
glyph-char NOW is to allow us to cleanly make that change in Emacs 23
without breaking Emacs 22 complient code (that uses those functions).

> We can decide this later.

I STRONGLY disagree.

To me, it makes no sense to keep the current description of glyph
codes in Emacs 22 when we _KNOW_ that code based on the current text
will _NOT_ work in Emacs 23.

Replacing the text with the text I wrote would give a clean transition
from Emacs 22 to Emacs 23.  

We should note in Emacs 22 NEWS that to generate glyph codes, user
should use the new functions, and that the old method of using numeric
glyph codes is obsolete, and will be removed in Emacs 23.

I honestly don't see why anyone can disagree with this!

And I don't see what _harm_ it can do.

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk