bug#9054: 24.0.50; show source in other window

[Arthur Miller]

martin rudalics <rudalics@gmx.at> writes:

>>> I just did C-h f whitespace-display-window, from there went to that
>>> function's source and added a doc-string for it.  Displaying the source
>>> in the help window would have been merely distracting in this scenario.
>>>
>> Ok, but that is diferrent usage scenario :). You are completely changing
>> requirement there. What you describe is indeed more handy when you wish to 
>> hack
>> a function. But when you do not wish to hack it, but would like to see what 
>> it
>> does, but stay in the same buffer you were edited, than what you describe 
>> would
>> be nuissance and distraction.
>
> The point I wanted to make was that there may be tenths of different
> usage scenarios for perusing the *Help* window and its buffer.

Ah, sorry then, in that case we are in agreement. Yes there are different usage
scenarios. I think what you have considered in this thread, does not even
require help buffer. If someone would just like to pop a source for a symbol,
you could just code an interactive funtion to open the source file for the
symbol, all the code is already there. There is no need to even touch the
help-buffer for that.

>> Also, consider again, people new to Emacs. Having source auto shown to them,
>> makes them probably more akin to see what is going on, how things work and 
>> give
>> more incitament to explore. I think.
>
> There are two major sources of disappointments here - many users are not
> proficient in C and often the function they will look up first is only a
> stub for the function doing the actual work.

Yes indeed, I agree with that one. Also many new users would be new to Lisp
too. My proposal was to make it optional to show/hide source, mostly because of
the cpu overhead, but we can also add option to show only lisp sources.

I don't what is the best; I don't think there is a one-solution-fits-all in this
case. Users have different workflows, different backgroudns etc, so maybe it is
best to just be flexible as much as it is possible.