Subject: Re: bug#79485: 31.0.50; Loaded files inherit read-symbol-shorthands

From: João Távora <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2025 18:56:54 +0100

On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 6:49 PM David Rosenbaum <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > Are these packages even in Emacs?
>
> IMO using shorthands in this way is a natural way to abbreviate long
> symbols. AFAICT, there is no other way to do so without polluting the
> global namespace. I'm open to alternatives if there's another preferred way
> to handle this use case. defalias is an obvious option but of course that
> pollutes the global namespace.
>

Polluting the global namespace is the name of the game in Elisp (and C).
Shorthands are just lipstick on a pig.  Prior to shorthands, there was
namespacing etiquette, and there still us. This means you should pick a
`consistent-longish-prefix-` for your consistent-longish-prefix.el
library.  This still holds. But it's a pain to type and read for some of
us. Shorthands are just to summarize that prefix to 'clp-'.  Any other use
is haphazard (opens the door to shadowing etc).

But what you reported is a bug, no doubt.  And fairly serious.  I never
intended for things to work like that.

João