From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Andy Moreton Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Upcoming loss of usability of Emacs source files and Emacs. Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2015 19:06:39 +0100 Message-ID: References: <20150615142237.GA3517@acm.fritz.box> <87y4jkhqh5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <557F3C22.4060909@cs.ucla.edu> <5580D356.4050708@cs.ucla.edu> <87si9qonxb.fsf@gnu.org> <5581C29E.1030101@yandex.ru> <558D6A3D.1070706@yandex.ru> <558DD6EA.4090306@yandex.ru> <558F497A.8050304@yandex.ru> <55926A9E.40901@yandex.ru> <5592A98E.4020407@cs.ucla.edu> <55941BD8.6050502@cs.ucla.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1435774029 20198 80.91.229.3 (1 Jul 2015 18:07:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 18:07:09 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jul 01 20:07:00 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ZAMPT-0003gK-B4 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 20:06:59 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60431 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZAMPS-0005v7-HZ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 14:06:58 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:35976) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZAMPP-0005v2-U7 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 14:06:56 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZAMPK-0000Gl-OO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 14:06:55 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:53359) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZAMPK-0000GB-HZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 14:06:50 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ZAMPI-0003b1-En for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 20:06:48 +0200 Original-Received: from uk.solarflare.com ([193.34.186.16]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 20:06:48 +0200 Original-Received: from andrewjmoreton by uk.solarflare.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 01 Jul 2015 20:06:48 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 18 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: uk.solarflare.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (windows-nt) Cancel-Lock: sha1:BaLae65vfRbHZhS1tqI13GssfS0= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:187701 Archived-At: On Wed 01 Jul 2015, Paul Eggert wrote: > Andy Moreton wrote: >> is there a good reason why the >> documentation is a string containing escapes rather than a sexp using >> the normal quoting mechanisms ? > > One good reason is inertia. :-) There's a lot of code dealing with > docstrings; e.g., they can be in C code as well as in Lisp, and are processed > specially by source transformation. That being said, how would the sexps > work, and why would they be an improvement? Can you give an example? This was nothing more than idle musing. Doc strings contain markup for quoted or interpolated expressions, which seem to match what quote and backquote do in ordinary elisp. AndyM