>>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson
<jas(a)extundo.com> writes:
Simon> ?\xCAFE to work in the core could be useful in itself, and
No, it's more trouble than it's worth; this is precisely what we call
"Ebola" in the code. Anyway, XEmacs already has a perfectly good
hexadecimal notation for integers: #xCAFE. Rationale: it's standard,
even Common:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/hyperspec/HyperSpec/Body/sec_2-4-8...
Simon> then the ecrypto maintainer wouldn't have to do work.
As I wrote before, Ken Handa is talking about an XEmacs-style
separation of character and integer in the near future of GNU Emacs.
I suspect this abuse will stop working in GNU Emacs, too, within a
year or two.
>>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson
<jas(a)extundo.com> writes further:
Simon> One way of defining useful semantic would be to have it
Straining our brains to define useful semantics for erroneous
constructs is not considered Righteous by XEmacs developers.
Simon> translate into the hex integer 4E03. Declaring a character
Simon> using its hex code seems like nonsense,
What about
http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/? It _will_ make
sense to resurrect this notation in the near future, for precisely
that purpose. However, the reader will signal on code points that are
not assigned characters.
Simon> you must know the coding system too, and in that case you
Simon> use 'make-char'. Apart from the ASCII subset and perhaps
Simon> also the entire <256 space, for legacy reasons. So using
Simon> it for integer constants seems useful, but I may be missing
Simon> something.
Yes. The unbridgable technical difference between the two Emacsen. :-þ
This is really the "abstract data types" issue in a nutshell.
When faced with the need for a hexadecimal notation for integers, GNU
says "let's use a notation designed for characters because it's
already there; who cares about error-checking and clarity anyway?"
But XEmacs adopts a standard notation intended for integers, allowing
the Lisp reader to check for non-character-valued "characters".
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