Re: How does one find out what file a library has been loaded from?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Stefan.

On Thu, Jul 21, 2022 at 14:37:06 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> >> (ELisp code shouldn't need to know and end-users shouldn't need to
> >> know either (barring bugs or curiosity of course))
> > For those reasons, amongs others, there shouldn't be these transparent (i.e.
> > opaque) things.

> You're confusing "transparent" and "opaque".  Opaque means users
> can't know, transparent means they don't need to know.  Very different.

Let's put it this way, if the Emacs maintainers had decided to block as
far as possible users' access to the actual file code has been loaded
from, the result would look pretty much like what we've got.

> In any case, my point is that this design decision to make the native
> code compilation transparent should be reflected in the docs and should
> inform how we document the features.

If you are right in your distinction between "transparent" and "opaque"
the matters we are talking about fall into the category "opaque".  This
is a massive philosophical departure, before which the philosopy was to
make NOTHING in Emacs opaque to the user.  If there was any debate about
this, then I must have missed it.


>         Stefan

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).