Re: Moving kbd to subr.el

[Stefan Kangas]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Strict versions are nice because then you get errors when you do
> something wrong instead of it subtly not working.

That's true.  I'm just not sure how that balances out.

If we are keeping support for a string syntax in the 'kbd-*' functions,
it's probably a good idea to make it strict.  And then it seems prudent
to just use that same syntax everywhere.

But let's say we were to promote `kbd-*' mainly for use in Emacs and
packages, and that we drop support for string syntax there (only
allowing instead e.g. the XEmacs [(control meta x)] syntax).  And let's
say we coupled this with promoting e.g. `bind-key' as the strictly
user-facing way to bind keys.  In this case, perhaps the balance would
be different.

For example, do we need to demand "C-<return>" instead of "C-return" in
our strictly user-facing function?  Maybe not.  But we should IMO
definitely demand that if you want to bind a command to the six
character sequence, you need to specify that as "r e t u r n".