GNU bug report logs - #66756
30.0.50; [PATCH] Improve discussion of 'let' in Elisp Introduction manual

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From: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
To: Jim Porter <jporterbugs <at> gmail.com>
Cc: eliz <at> gnu.org, 66756 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#66756: 30.0.50; [PATCH] Improve discussion of 'let' in Elisp Introduction manual
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2023 12:38:18 -0400

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  > > This is like understanding that in your host's home, whenever he refers to ``the house'', he means his house, not yours.

That seems good enough to me.

  > My previous concern about the "lexical binding" digression still applies 
  > though. However, I'm not sure how to get around that at present; if we 
  > want to talk about lexical binding in the manual, we need to get users 
  > to enable it, so I think it's unavoidable that we at least mention it. 

I think that the lexical/dynamic scope distinction is sufficiently
important that this manual should explain it, whether or not hiding it
is simply impossible.

However, tehre are lots of simple Lisp functions for which lexical
vs dynamic maks no diffeence.  For example,

(defun square (x)
  (* x x))

So perhaps it is possible for the first few sections to use examples
which work the same in lexical mode and dynamic mode, THEN show an
example for which it does make a difference as a way to explain the
two modes.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

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