\consists terminology (was: Advice on naming and structuring scholarLY commands)

[David Kastrup]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

> Flaming Hakama by Elaine <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> I think that conveys more clearly what is happening.
>
> Not really: that remains something to look up in the documentation.
>
> Now I'll readily admit that \consists / \remove does not make for an
> appealing antonym pair.  I'd be leary after all this time of turning a
> common word like "add" into a reserved word even though "remove" is not
> better in that regard.  But at least it has the advantage of being
> established.

Some of my argument may be based on some tendency of arguing anything
out of contrariness.  However, this latter point has been irking me
quite a bit as opposed to the quirky grammar you complain over.  While
it would likely do nothing to address your complaint, actually moving to
\consists / \unconsists would, while doubling down on the unnaturality
you complain about, make for a better pairing, create a new keyword very
unlikely to be in previous use and free \remove.

I had previously thought about uncommissioning
\accepts/\denies/\consists/\defaultchild/\remove as keywords and
implement them in some manner as scheme functions but the existing
Scheme function `remove' would have conflicted.

\add/\remove would not help at all in this regard while
\consists/\unconsists in all its glorious awkwardness would be
reasonably easy to remember.

Options for the negation like \desists/\resists are sort-of contrary but
not really antonyms, so I'd rather lean towards the mindless
\unconsists.

I'd not go as far as to think about \unaccepts instead of \denies
though.

Sorry, this is not going at all in the direction you were aiming for but
from a purely technical standpoint getting rid of \remove would be a
much more worthwhile target than junking \consists , and \unconsists or
something of similar awkwardness would be a lot less problematic as a
newcomer than something as generic as \add .

-- 
David Kastrup