Re: Do shorthands break basic tooling (tags, grep, etc)? (was Re: Shorthands have landed on master)

[Stefan Monnier]

João Távora [2021-09-28 16:28:13] wrote:
> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>> It shouldn't be very hard [IOW, I encourage some of the readers here to
>> go out and do it] to refine/extend the `find-function-regexp-alist`
>> mechanism so that `M-.` jumps directly to the actual `:constructor`
>> thingy or to the actual field corresponding to an accessor.
> Regexps.... Ugh.

Yup.  FWIW, my suggestion above was meant to suggest to extend it so we
can also have functions rather than regexps and let the function search
for the field/constructor (but only after finding the `cl-defstruct`
via regexp search ;-).

> Shouldn't we invest in a proper macro-expanding and
> source-tracking reader?

It's been proposed but the only attempt at such a thing has been Alan's
which had some serious drawbacks (making symbol equality more complex
and costly).

> I've recently some work for a Common Lisp annotation-based stepper
> that correlates each evaluated form with a source position.  I built
> a working system and published a paper.  Is there interest in such
> a deeper Lisp introspection features for Emacs?

Interest, yes.  Do you have a URL for your paper?

>>>> Long names being "tedious" (quoting the new info manual) to read
>>>> and write seems like an insufficient reason, IMHO.
>> As a researcher in programming languages, I tend to take it for granted
>> that "syntax doesn't matter", but in reality details of syntax have
>> enormous impacts on how languages are used and perceived,
> Yes, when you're transferring programs between two well-behaved robotic
> entities, syntax doesn't matter.

For us PL people the reason why it doesn't matter is because we only
look at the typing rules and dynamic semantics.
We care more about how the grammar is written than about how programs
are written.


        Stefan