Re: thing-at-point: inconsistent behaviour?

[Raffaele Ricciardi]

On 08/16/2012 05:24 PM, Andreas Röhler wrote:
> Am 16.08.2012 17:48, schrieb Barry Margolin:
>> In article <mailman.7107.1345117968.855.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
>>   Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@easy-emacs.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Am 15.08.2012 21:00, schrieb Raffaele Ricciardi:
>>>> On 08/15/2012 07:34 PM, Barry Margolin wrote:
>>>>   > In article <a926tjFeslU1@mid.individual.net>,
>>>>   >   Raffaele Ricciardi <rfflrccrd@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>   >
>>>>   >> Hello there,
>>>>   >>
>>>>   >> the documentation of `thing-at-point' states that such function
>>>> returns
>>>>   >> "the
>>>>   >> thing around or next to point".  This is not the case with either
>>>>   >> (thing-at-point
>>>>   >> 'symbol) or (thing-at-point 'sexp), for they both may return
>>>> the thing
>>>>   >> before
>>>>   >> point.  Try it with the following snippet (! symbolizes the
>>>> point):
>>>>   >
>>>>   > Doesn't "next to" include both immediately before and
>>>> immediately after?
>>>>
>>>> I stand corrected after having consulted a dictionary.  Then it is
>>>> (thing-at-point 'list) that is misbehaving.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> hmm, IMHO you was right. Here is the code
>>>
>>> (defun symbol-at-point ()
>>>     "Return the symbol at point, or nil if none is found."
>>>     (let ((thing (thing-at-point 'symbol)))
>>>       (if thing (intern thing))))
>>>
>>> last line don't return the thing as delivered by thing-at-point but the
>>> result of (intern thing)
>>>
>>> that way breaking consistency.
>>
>> That function has nothing to do with the problem he's reporting. It's
>> just an extra utility function that makes use of thing-at-point to
>> return something that may be useful in certain situations.
>>
>
> okay, as it happens it's for years in my mind: that symbol-at-point
> breaks consistency.
>
> Another approach to give the reasons:
>
> IMO basically two ways of returns are feasible by such a thing-at-point
> library
>
> - deliver objects from editing perspective, i.e as buffer-substrings
> - deliver objects for use in programs

When you are looking for a buffer substring, you call
`bounds-of-thing-at-point'; when you are looking for a string result, 
you call
`thing-at-point'; when you want the result as a sexp, you call the 
specialized
function.

> Not to expect is changing the computers internal state already when
> picking an object by thing-at-point.
> That's what is done by "intern" however.

Indeed this is an undesirable side effect of `symbol-at-point' calling
`intern'.  Could `intern' be replaced with `make-symbol'?