Re: Making a function than can only be used interactively

[Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com>]

> Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2022 at 1:21 AM
> From: "Stefan Monnier" <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> To: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech@gmx.com>
> Cc: "Tassilo Horn" <tsdh@gnu.org>, carlmarcos@tutanota.com, help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Making a function than can only be used interactively
>
> > "interactive-only" should go far beyond a byte-compilation warning.
> >
> > I suggest that "interactive-only" does actually make the function work
> > in an interactive-only way.
>
> What would be the benefit?
>
>         Stefan

There could be no benefit.  One sure thing is that there are so many ways to use
the interactive clause, that it is difficult to decide what is good design and what is
bad design.  Might be the reason some users think more assistance on its use is fundamental
to their elisp learning.  Mainly because the manual does not include any scenarios for
good design.

Speaking of design.  I can see situations when a sequence of interactive calls could depend
on the specific interactive value supplied through arguments.


(defun foo (a b c)
(interactive ...)

(if (equal a 1)
  (let* (h (read-from-minibuffer ...))
  ... ))
...)

Although discouraged, the above could make sense, but completely wrong to use
non-interactively.

Perhaps there should be something beyond "An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp".