Subject: bug#12884: 24.2.50; defun*: argument lists in documentation look terrible

From: Michael Heerdegen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:51:09 +0100

Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]> writes:

> > | (my-toggle-item #:MODE-OR-VAR &key ((:selected #:ENABLED-SPEC) (\`
> > | (am-bound-and-true-p (quote (\, mode-or-var))))) ((:help
> > | #:HELP-STRING) (am-make-symbol-docstring mode-or-var)))
>
> Let me just say that I will resist the urge to tell you what I think
> about this style of argument list ;-)

Please don't resist.  What's wrong with it?

> > This looks terrible with all this #: and quote \, stuff.
>
> Binding print-quoted makes sense to improve the quote/backquote syntax.
> But I don't understand why we have those #: in there.  I understand it's
> there to say the symbols are not interned, but I don't understand why
> they're not interned.

See `cl--make-usage-args'.  It upcases the names of the arguments and
makes them a symbol again.  The one who wrote that wanted that no new
symbols are interned, and so used `make-symbol'.  Dunno if there's a
reason to do so.

- Michael.