Subject: Re: bug#25294: 26.0.50; Allow more catch-all values for cl-defmethod's &context plus major-mode specializer

From: Noam Postavsky <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 20:39:28 -0500

[forwarding to list]

Subject: Re: bug#25294: 26.0.50; Allow more catch-all values for cl-defmethod's &context plus major-mode specializer
From: Eric Abrahamsen <[email-masked]>
To: Noam Postavsky <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 16:49:14 -0800

On 12/11/17 19:08 PM, Noam Postavsky wrote:
> Eric Abrahamsen <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> Ahem, I only just noticed (a year later) that there was a response to
>> this when I searched for bug reports I'd opened -- sorry about that.
>
> It's had lots of time to rest then :)
>
>>> If you want to ignore the major mode, why do you want to use the
>>> major-mode specializer?
>>
>> It's the equivalent of the "t" branch in a `cond' statement. You write
>> methods to handle specific major modes, and write another method to
>> handle the catch-all case of "all other modes".
>
> Still not really convinced by this, what's wrong with the last way you
> put in your OP:
>
>     (cl-defmethod example-method ())

A year later, older and wiser, I agree that maybe all that's needed is
more documentation. I just noticed that, at some point in the interim,
the documentation for generic functions has been greatly expanded, which
is nice!

I'd like to add the following to the docs:

1. The &context thing has to come after the required arguments, but
   before any &optional or &rest things.
2. You can have an arbitrary number of forms following &context.
3. The &context arguments don't have to match the declared arguments in
   `cl-defgeneric'.
4. Ergo they can be left off altogether without needing to be
   specifically declared as nil or what have you, ie, my original bug
   report isn't really a bug.

If this looks okay, I'll have at the docs.

Eric