Subject: bug#39557: 27.0.60; Elisp manual, doc about bignums

From: Noam Postavsky <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2020 13:23:43 -0500

Drew Adams <[email-masked]> writes:

> There's nothing the least bit sarcastic in any of that.
[...]
> avoid attributing malevolence when a simple, constructive reading will
> do.  The golden rule implies offering the benefit of the doubt.

Yeah, I didn't intend to attribute malevolence; you wondered how I read
sarcasm (which, even if it might not be the best technique for
communication, isn't the same as ill-intent) in your message, so I
explained.

> Actually, I was just expressing my surprise,
> as Eli usually shepherds new doc sufficiently
> well that such things don't happen.  And I
> mean that sincerely, as a compliment.

Although I do believe you meant it that way, I still struggle to read
this as a compliment, even with the added explanation.

> to the technical content - the problem
> reported?  Any thoughts on that?

The idea is recommend using eql for comparing integers first, and move
the description of eq and fixnum/bignum distinction to the next
paragraph, right?

And also to document when the reader returns fixnums or bignums.  Though
I guess that might instead be solved by making the rule you cited
stronger to something like:

    Emacs always represents integers in fixnum range as a fixnum, not a
    bignum.

(Assuming that's true, which I believe it is)