> Which modes? The ones where "declaration" is a thing.
So we'll have a dozen different commands called 'xxx-find-declarations'
which will be implemented the same (?) way? Bound to the same key sequence?
If there a particular point to doing that? Do we expect other modes to
reuse the same binding to do something else? That will reduce UI
consistency, at the very least.
Implementation could be trivial, xref could even provide a command-defining macro.
Consistency should be evaluated considering the two approaches. Is it more consistent to have an xref command that doesn't really make sense in a another dozen languages?
> IOW xref should try to stay language-agnostic, but provide common
> framework for language-specific things like major modes to reach
> backends like Eglot or anything else
Most programming languages have something that corresponds to the term
"declaration".
Not sure about that. But if one squints very hard, everything does indeed look like a nail to one's hammer.
> Mind you the same point made for xref can be made about LSP,
> language-agnostic on paper, but many a language-specific concept poorly
> disguised in there. But I see no reason to copy that flaw.
I don't mind the idea of extensibility (and packages like lsp-mode do
this already: IIRC they have commands called lsp-find-declarations and
lsp-find-implementations).
As commands, this would be bloat in Eglot. But Eglot can give access to these LSP interfaces.
But insofar as languages do have shared syntactic concepts, I don't see
why we wouldn't want to include more common ones.
"Definition" and "references" are universal enough. "Declaration", "class" and others, not so much. But that's just my 2c.
João