GNU bug report logs - #40671
[DOC] modify literal objects

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Package: emacs;

Reported by: Kevin Vigouroux <ke.vigouroux <at> laposte.net>

Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2020 20:40:02 UTC

Severity: normal

Tags: patch

Done: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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Message #303 received at 40671 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen <at> web.de>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: ke.vigouroux <at> laposte.net, Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>,
 Mattias Engdegård <mattiase <at> acm.org>,
 Dmitry Gutov <dgutov <at> yandex.ru>, Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>,
 40671 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#40671: [DOC] modify literal objects
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 06:40:39 +0200

Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu> writes:

> So again: anyone who wants to revert my recent doc changes to emacs-27
> is welcome to do so.  Or, if you'd prefer to uniformly subsitute
> "literal object" for "constant"

I don't think "literal" covers all the cases you have in mind.  I don't
have an idea for a name of the class of cases you have in mind, because
I would not subsume all examples you gave in one class at all.  They
might be implementation- or memory-wise, but I don't think this is a good
perspective to describe a high-level language.

For example, the result of `symbol-name'.  In my eyes, modifying the
result has a side effect (renaming the symbol, but in a way that is not
supported), and this side effect will have undesired consequences.  But
that is true for other strings, too, that you would call mutable.  It's
hard to draw a clear line here, unless you think (C-) implementation
wise.

For what you describe I would just say that under certain conditions
certain objects that are, in principle, mutable, should not be changed
in certain circumstances because of implementation details, here is a
list of such cases: ..., that's it.

I'm sorry that I also can't offer patches because I don't speak texinfo.

> It's really not worth arguing about, and I apologize for stirring up
> this hornet's nest.

I've never been called a hornet before.

Michael.
This bug report was last modified 5 years and 2 days ago.

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