Re: Unbalanced change hooks (part 2) [Documentation fix still remaining]

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 17:42:24 +0000
> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden
> From: Alan Mackenzie <address@hidden>
> 
> > Your attempt didn't describe the current implementation.  It described
> > what you thought it should be.
> 
> The text in question (intended for the Elisp manual) was:
> 
>   Normally the before-change-functions and the after-change-functions
>   hooks are called in balanced pairs around each buffer change, enabling
>   state to be determined in a before-change function and used in an
>   after-change function.  However on rare occasions,
>   before-change-functions is not called before a buffer change and
>   after-change-functions is thus called twice in succession.  Your
>   program should be ready to deal with such an occurrence.
> 
> The crucial part of that is the first sentence.  It is true.

We use "normally" in the manual to mean "always, unless changed by
customizations".  So the above use of that word is extremely confusing
and thus a bad idea.

And the part about "balanced pairs" is simply false, if "balanced" is
to be interpreted in its everyday's meaning.

> The second sentence is true in essence, though it possibly needs to be
> made more accurate to deal with other cases.

The current text is even more "true in essence", though.