Subject: Re: bug#70696: [PATCH] Autoload `re-disassemble'

From: Ihor Radchenko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 02 May 2024 11:25:21 +0000

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

>> AFAIK, these kinds of helper functions are usually defined in C code and
>> are available without any requires as long as Emacs is compiled with
>> right flags. Having to do (require 'disass) was a surprise - I had to
>> search Emacs sources.
>
> I wonder why it was a surprise.  I'm quite used to the fact that some
> functions and variables are not known until I load their package.  You
> seem to say that it never happens to you?  How come? Emacs has gobs of
> stuff that is not autoloaded, including commands and user options.

Not in general. I was surprised in the context of regexp-related
function. I generally have an expectation that regular expressions are
available out of the box, leading to assumption that debug functionality
for regular expressions will be available too.

That said, I am OK with either decision you make about this. It is just
_me_ who were surprised. If others are not, there is no reason to change
upstream to meet my intuition.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
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