Subject: bug#34708: alist-get has unclear documentation

From: "Miguel V. S. Frasson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2019 12:40:57 -0300

Hi Michael

Em sáb, 2 de mar de 2019 06:25, Michael Heerdegen <[email-masked]>
escreveu:

> "Miguel V. S. Frasson" <[email-masked]> writes:
>
> > * Last paragraph starts with `This'. What is `this'? ALIST? TESTFN?
> > alist-get itself?
>
> Only one of those makes sense to me.  Do you know what a generalized
> variable is?
>

I think so, ALIST, but 'this' should be the last thing that was referred to
or talked about. The point is that the documentation must be clear, and it
is not in this case.

I know about generalized variables but really never used myself.

> * How do I use `this' or `it' to set a value? Function is alist-*get*
> > but somehow I can set values. A simple example on doc-string and/or
> > info node would explain everything.
>
> That could make sense, since it's an important use case and generalized
> variables are probably not something everyone is used to.
>

I can't imagine how to *set* anything with alist-get. It seams to me that
it just use the value of ALIST for look up, so talk about generalized
variables is meaningless to me here.

> * Action of REMOVE is described, but it doesn't correspond to code.
> > REMOVE is ignored.
>
> That's ok: the generalized variable is implemented in gv.el.
>
>
> Michael.
>

Miguel