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bug#5105: 23.1; doc string of facemenu-set-face
From: |
Drew Adams |
Subject: |
bug#5105: 23.1; doc string of facemenu-set-face |
Date: |
Mon, 1 Aug 2011 14:47:47 -0700 |
> >> > What? Why are you arbitrarily deciding that? Why not
> >> > assume that allowing a string is a good thing, a
> >> > purposeful design decision?
> >>
> >> Because a good programmer knows that it's obviously not a
> >> good idea to encourage the caller to use a string here.
> >
> > It might be obvious to what you call good programmers, but
> > how about giving a _reason_, for us mere mortals?
>
> How 'bout the other way around: give me a reason to accept strings.
You're the one claiming that there is a good (even _obvious_) reason not to.
What's the reason, if it's so obvious?
> >>> We have many places in Emacs where we allow an arg to be
> >>> either a thing or its name. Think of all of the BUFFER args
> >>> that can be a buffer or a buffer name.
> >
> > What do the "good programmers" say about the design in
> > those cases? Is it "obviously not a good idea" also?
>
> Very often, yes it's also a bad idea.
Why? And when? ("Very often" doesn't say much - how about a specific context
where it is a bad idea, since there are supposedly so many.)
How about a reason or two to back up all the hand-waving claims about "good" and
"bad"?
> At least for buffers we have a guarantee that there is a
> one-to-one mapping between (live) buffers and buffer names,
> so for buffers it's a bit less bad.
"Less bad"? You haven't said what is bad about it.
And what about faces? Can a given face have two different names? We have
`face-name' the same way we have `buffer-name'. At least there is nothing
documented AFAICT about `face-name' being a relation and not a function.
If F is a face, under what circumstances will (face-name F) give different names
at different times?