Re: About Repeated Expansion

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

() Xue Fuqiao <xfq.free@gmail.com>
() Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:06:38 +0800

   I'm using the bzr trunk and emacs-24 branch, and I don't have Emacs
   24.2.  The Emacs manuals(especially the elisp manual) is changing
   fast, so my info file is newer than the version in the GNU website.
   I'm not sure whether the node name of the two are the same.

That's OK (see below).

   I'll download the latest stable manuals later.

I rather think it is advantageous to everyone to discuss the newer
manuals, precisely because they are changing.

If we discuss the old, any problems that arise in them may or may not
have been already fixed in the new.  If we discuss the new, any such
problems can be addressed on a more timely basis.

These messages are archived, so whatever the xref style (URL or info
node name), there is always the risk of it going stale, making life more
interesting for future m.l. archeologists.  Links to new manuals reduces
that risk.

The last thing to consider (before getting down from this meta level
discussion and back to the topic), is that the rate of change of any
particular topic usually depends on its maturity.  Topics like bidi
support and window configuration DSL finangling are newer, so one
expects quite some document churn there.  Topics like macros are very
(decades) mature, so one expects incremental improvements only, there.

But why speculate?  This is free software!  The (.texi) source, the
ChangeLog files and the repo are all there to peruse.  E.g., ‘C-x v g’
in doc/lispref/macros.texi (in a local Git repo) tells me that the node
"Repeated Expansion" was last touched in early September 2007.  The
ChangeLog file in that dir tells me macros.texi has undergone small
changes in style and diction in the intervening years w/ few changes in
organization or scope.  From all this, which admittedly took 15 minutes
to procure and surmise, i have convinced myself (and maybe yoU?) that

 (info "(elisp) Repeated Expansion")

is a high-quality, long-lasting way to point to those docs.  (Now, watch
someone change it just to show how foolish ttn sounds, spewing... :-D)

                               - * - * -

Oops, i got a little carried away there.  Back on topic: First off, the
agent of change in this example is ‘setcdr’.  Next, the phrase:

 is compiled, then the macro @code{empty-object} is expanded

could probably be made more precise to emphasize that it is not
‘empty-object’ per se that is expanded (which actually makes no sense),
but the call to it:

 is compiled, then the macro call @code{(empty-object)} is expanded

Note the parens in the ‘@code’ command.  Does that help?

-- 
Thien-Thi Nguyen ..................................... GPG key: 4C807502
.                  NB: ttn at glug dot org is not me                   .
.                 (and has not been since 2007 or so)                  .
.                        ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES                         .
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