Re: [External] : Re: completing-read depricated initial-input

[Jean Louis]

* carlmarcos--- via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor 
<help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> [2022-06-24 14:25]:
> If emacs discourages things, people will take it seriously.  A
> deprecated statement has consequences to many people in the way they
> code.  It is assumed that the  functionality is not to be relied
> upon too much.

You refer to this:

If INITIAL-INPUT is non-nil, insert it in the minibuffer initially,
  with point positioned at the end.  If it is (STRING . POSITION), the
  initial input is STRING, but point is placed at _zero-indexed_
  position POSITION in STRING.  (*Note* that this is different from
  ‘read-from-minibuffer’ and related functions, which use one-indexing
  for POSITION.)  This feature is deprecated--it is best to pass nil
  for INITIAL-INPUT and supply the default value DEF instead.  The
  user can yank the default value into the minibuffer easily using
  M-n.

Maybe author of that description could consider various use
cases. That assumes that somebody is usig INITIAL-INPUT as replacement
for DEF. 

It also assumes what is best for programmer, with "it is best to pass
nil" -- but that is best for who? Maybe somebody who does not use it
or has confusion with it.

INITIAL-INPUT and DEF are different things, each has its own use in
various situations.

Instead of deprecating 2 different functions because some people
assume they are same, description shall be written so that there is no
confusion what is DEF and what is INITIAL-INPUT.

-- 
Jean

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