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RE: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation
From: |
Drew Adams |
Subject: |
RE: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation |
Date: |
Fri, 17 Jul 2020 09:58:59 -0700 (PDT) |
> Of course I did. But as it happens, this difference does not exist in
> Emacs. Remember that one of the direct inspirations of Emacs were Lisp
> machines, in which the user can read and modify almost every piece of
> code on the fly, from the lowest to the highest level. In such a system,
> there can be no difference between "internal" and "external" documentation.
> I understand that it can be difficult to adapt to this way of thinking
> when one comes from another programming tradition.
FWIW, I agree.
The only uses of labeling something "internal" for Emacs
are (1) to indicate some relative risk/expectation of
future change in implementation and (2) to indicate some
relative risk in changing some fragile or tricky code.
And even in those case, IMO just a binary label "internal"
vs "external" is not the way to go. Just document in more
words what's involved - which kind of risk, maybe exactly
what the risks are or the future expectations/intentions
are.
IOW, "relative" is key here - it's not about an unexplained
absolute "hands-off" or "don't look". We aren't limited
to just hanging an "Off Limits - No Admittance" sign. We
can tell our future selves just what's involved, and why.
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, (continued)
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, John Yates, 2020/07/17
- RE: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Drew Adams, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Eli Zaretskii, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Dmitry Gutov, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Dmitry Gutov, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Gregory Heytings, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Dmitry Gutov, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Gregory Heytings, 2020/07/17
- RE: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation,
Drew Adams <=
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Dmitry Gutov, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Gregory Heytings, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Yuan Fu, 2020/07/17
- RE: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Drew Adams, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Richard Stallman, 2020/07/17
- RE: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Drew Adams, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Dmitry Gutov, 2020/07/17
- RE: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Drew Adams, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Stefan Monnier, 2020/07/17
- Re: Opaque objects and Emacs documentation, Andy Moreton, 2020/07/23