Re: beginning-of-defun (again)

[Andreas Röhler]

 On 31.10.2015 13:24, David Kastrup wrote:
> Andreas Röhler<address@hidden>  writes:
>
> >   On 31.10.2015 00:14, Richard Stallman wrote:
> > > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> > > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> > > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
> > >
> > >     >   With emacs -Q, C-M-a from behind example below, stops at "(bar)",
> > >     >   missing the beginning of function.
> > >
> > >     >   (defun foo ()
> > >     >      (insert "
> > >     >   (bar)"))
> > >
> > > Our convention is that you should write it this way:
> > >
> > >      (defun foo ()
> > >         (insert "
> > >      \(bar)"))
> > A convention which probably predates Aristoteles :)
> > Working-by-convention is rather a social thing...
> >
> > That design was a real nuisance  when generating and writing functions
> > on the fly.
> > Sure, it's possible to live with it. But why not remove that
> > constraint, if possible?
> Because reparsing every file from its beginning in order to indent the
> current line is too expensive for large files?

Delivered some benchmark showing a reliable solution must not be slower.

> The meaning of every Lisp file can be changed by putting
>
> (setq everything "
>
> at its beginning.  There really is no correct way to determine current
> state apart from parsing from the start.  So we have a convention for an
> "incorrect way" of avoiding parsing from the start.

With the side-effect of creating a certain number of bugs - which are 
already inside, but not reported, because "configure..." would be the 
answer.

The current buggy behavior detects beginning-of-defun inside a string - 
which is not to cure by conventions.