Re: tags for functions

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:44:29 +0100 Lennart Borgman <address@hidden> wrote: 

LB> On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 9:36 PM, Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Ted Z wrote in comp.emacs and gnu.emacs.help:
>>> I agree this would be useful. It's best done with tags IMO, rather
>>> than explicitly listing the related functions. For example, motion
>>> commands should be tagged "motion" and then every command with that
>>> tag can automatically list every motion command. The key is that the
>>> extra work is in classification, not in tediously listing every
>>> command's peers.
>>> 
>>> Tags I could use: motion, file, coding-system, menu, buffer, process
>>> 
>>> Each package should probably tag its commands with the package name.
>>> 
>>> Short tags are not always descriptive enough, but long tags get
>>> unpleasantly verbose so the real art is in balancing between the two.
>>> 
>>> Anything more hierarchical than tags is painful to manage in the long run.
>> 
>> A tangential discussion about the inconsistent naming of motion commands
>> led me to the proposal above.
>> 
>> I think it would be a nice addition to Emacs.  I did a search and didn't
>> find prior relevant discussions.
>> 
>> Every package with a comment stating Keywords: at the beginning could
>> automatically give those keywords as tags to its functions.  That would
>> probably be 50% or less of the total needed tags, but it's an easy
>> start.

LB> I think the idea is nice, but maybe keywords should be used (like in
LB> defcustom etc) for the implementation?

"Keywords" is an OK name for the concept; "tags" is the same thing
logically but we should stick with what's normal for Emacs Lisp.  What's
important is to:

1) build a list of command keywords quickly (using each package's
Keywords?)

2) refine the keywords into a simple taxonomy that is not too big nor
too small.

The first question I have is, how to associate keywords with a function?
Should I use the symbol-plist?

Then I can walk the namespace, find all functions, and display their
tags.  That will let me construct a taxonomy proposal.

Thanks
Ted