Re: Proposal to change naming format to allow package-prefix/function-name

[Zachary Kanfer]

> But if it were, in a Lisp context colon (:) would make more sense IMHO, as it is used in Common Lisp to separate the namespace ("package", in CL-speak) from the symbol name.

Perhaps. My gut feeling is that package-prefix/function-name is more readable than package-prefix:function-name, and also more obvious to new users, but I think either would be better than the current dash separation. I would think that any future implementation of namespaces would be able to work with any character chosen here; it wouldn't be just a copy-and-paste of CL code.

On Mon, Dec 30, 2019 at 7:04 AM Juanma Barranquero <address@hidden> wrote:

On Mon, Dec 30, 2019 at 8:03 AM Zachary Kanfer <address@hidden> wrote:

> Some Elisp functions that are part of Emacs already follow this format.
> 1. Many eshell functions already follow this format, for example eshell/ls, eshell/exit, and eshell/define.
> 2. Pcomplete functions use this format, even some for more than one hierarchical level, e.g. pcomplete/gzip, pcomplete/erc-mode/complete-command, pcomplete/org-mode/block-option/src.
> 3. Org-plot has half a dozen functions, like org-plot/goto-nearest-table.

I think this proposal is unlikely to gain traction. But if it were, in a Lisp context colon (:) would make more sense IMHO, as it is used in Common Lisp to separate the namespace ("package", in CL-speak) from the symbol name. That would make easier to adapt to CL-style namespaces, if they were implemented in Emacs some day (which I think won't ever happen, if previous discussions on the subject are to be believed).