Re: [ELPA] New package: transient

[Arthur Miller]

address@hidden writes:

> On Wed, Apr 29, 2020 at 01:33:08PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> > Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 12:17:55 +0200
>> > From: <address@hidden>
>> > 
>> > > > * 
>> > > > https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Association-Lists.html
>> > > >  sometimes assoc,
>> > > >  alist-get, assq, copy-alist. How am I supposed to use `C-h f alist 
>> > > > TAB` to discover the function I want? I
>> > > >  can't, I have to go to that webpage and read it all.
>> > > 
>> > > I think "C-h d alist RET" is your friend.
>> > 
>> > Yes, but :)
>> > 
>> > For people with some roots in Lisp culture (I'm one of them,
>> > mind you), "alist" is obvious. It's an association list, duh.
>> > For newcomers... not so much.
>> 
>> I was replying to the above, where the issue is that not all of the
>> functions' names begin with "alist".  Evidently, this means the
>> "alist" obstacle was already overcome.
>
> In the concrete, yes. I still mull over the more general
> problem (without having a good idea, unfortunately).
>
> I just wanted to raise some awareness, since it's an
> ever-recurring pattern.
>
> Cheers
> -- t
I think you are completely right. API naming in Emacs could use some
more love. "Namespacing" probably can't be used for
everything, but it would be useful if stuff was prefixed by api
where possible. I would also find it usefull if names reflected
more of functionality where it can. I use helm and try to discover
API from the list of compeletions, but it does not work so well when
names are not really reflecting important differences. For example
make-process and call-process - which one was asynchronous? I have to
look it up in either comments in source or manual, because there is
nothing in the name that suggests which one to use.

Of course namespacing *everythign* is probably not possible, but
where possible I think namespacing and maybe more carefull choosen
names would help. It certainly can't make things worse.
I don't understand why so much resistence to your remark in rest of
answers.