Subject: bug#59082: 28.2; Undocumented `intern-soft` feature with shorthands symbols

From: João Távora <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2022 18:14:11 +0000

On Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 17:49 Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > From: João Távora <[email-masked]>
> > Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2022 17:18:57 +0000
> > Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked]
> >
> > Of course. And for blue the programmer
>

Sorry, it probably didn't help that this "for blue" slipped in when typing
on my phone.

> If the docstring reader is ever enhanced, then maybe programmers can
> refer to symbols there using
> > shorthands. Until then, shorthands are Lisp-only.
>
> I don't understand this response.  Are you saying that the problem
> doesn't exist, or are you saying that you just don't care?  Or are you
> saying something else?
>

I understand. I'm saying docstrings are outside the functional scope of
shorthands, so you should just use longhand there for now. Same as you must
use in M-x and other "global" contexts. Because shorthands are not new
names for symbols.

But I'm also saying that, perhaps, for the particular case of docstrings,
which are inherently file-local constructs, the "docstring reader",
whenever it lives, could be enhanced to allow shorthands, too. So the
intermediate representation of the  docstring mini-language could
understand that the text x-foo actually references the symbol xeno-foo. And
then C-h f would display the true symbol name as it usually does.

But this would basically be a new feature, not strictly necessary to enable
the things that shorthands are originally designed for. But convenient, for
sure.

João