APA> Any comments? APA> From: Jarl Friis <jarl(a)diku.dk&gt; jf> according to the "elisp refference" (lispref.info) there are jf> som elisp commenting tips. It describes when to use one, two, jf> three, and four semicolons and where they should be put and jf> alligned. jf> But those tips don't fit to well with the tips given in the jf> "library headers" section (same info-file) , here ";;" is used jf> where, according to the commenting tips, ";;;" should be jf> used. similarily ";;;" is used where ";;;;" should be used. jf> The outline-mode seem to follow the library header tips, and jf> *not* the elisp commenting tips. Do you mean outline-mode _in use_ groks the library header tips? Or that the source code is written in conformance with them? jf> Why are the tips so contradicting? Probably because they were written by different people. For my money, the lisp-mnt library explicitly supports the "library header" approach, I think there are other tools (maybe outline mode?) that do too. What does emacs-lisp-mode do? If it is compatible with lisp-mnt style, we should settle on that style. -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Don't ask how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.

Jarl> I ment that the outline-mode _in use_ comply with the Jarl> library header tips. OK. Point for library headers. Jarl> But I guess what is wanted is documentation that is Jarl> consistent, and an outline-mode behaviour that comply with Jarl> that documentation. Yes. Jarl> Personally I prefer the elisp coding tips. I don't have a problem with that. But we should recommend something supported by the tools, and consistent with examples of "best practice." If you want to go through lisp-mnt.el and emacs-lisp-mode and so on, and add the possibility of switching (similar to the way various styles are permitted in cc-mode), I don't have an objection to that. But XEmacs core and XEmacs-maintained packages will continue to be done in the "library" style. We should document that as "recommended." Jarl> OK, so I guess you (to avoid recoding parts of lisp-mnt) Jarl> suggest the library header tips Not just lisp-mnt, but all of that "sample code" as well. Please revise the tips to emphasize the "library header" style. You are welcome to leave the description of the "elisp tips" as an alternative, but you should mention that it is (a) poorly (== not?) supported by the tools and (b) inconsistent with most code in XEmacs. -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Don't ask how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.

Jarl> So now I'm just curious: assuming that tools behave as Jarl> expected and all examples (i.e. all existing packages) are Jarl> converted and documentation is consistent, what do you Jarl> prefer? I find the ;;;; comments to be too heavy, but that I suppose is because I'm used to the lisp-mnt style. I don't have a strong preference for the style, but I do care about avoiding the work of conversion (of both files and their coders!!) -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Don't ask how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.