Subject: bug#53261: [External] : Re: bug#53261: 26.3; Doc of `load-history' should say what the alist order is.

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 21:35:01 +0000

> > The doc of `load-history' describes the alist entries in detail.  But it
> > should also say that the list entries are in reverse chronological order
> > of loading, i.e., earliest loaded libraries at the end, most recently
> > loaded entries at the beginning.
> 
> I'm not sure whether that's something that we guarantee, or want to
> guarantee?  Anybody have any opinions here?

1. I believe it's been in that order since Day One.
2. How could it be otherwise?  (Dunno.)
3. Users should have some understanding of the order,
   to make sense of `load-history'.  Examining this
   history is one way of figuring out something that
   didn't go as expected (e.g. the wrong definition
   of something shadowing another).

It's called `load-history'.  Users will expect it
to be similar to other `*-history' lists, unless
its doc says something different.  But it helps
to directly say what its order is.

It's true that the doc strings of the individual
_minibuffer_ history vars don't say that they are
"most recent first".  But at least the Elisp
manual (node `Minibuffer History') says it's true
of all minibuffer history vars.

The Emacs manual (node `Shell Ring') says that
shell histories are like minibuffer histories.
And node `Repetition' says that command history
is also "most recent first".