Re: [ELPA] New package: transient

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Philippe Vaucher <address@hidden>
> Date: Sat, 2 May 2020 10:09:36 +0200
> Cc: Richard Stallman <address@hidden>, address@hidden, Emacs developers 
> <address@hidden>
> 
>  > Why does it fail to do the job?
> 
>  It doesn't fail, but there are evidently users who want to have that
>  information without using the documentation features of Emacs, so any
>  solution based on C-h is not acceptable to them.
> 
> While there might be some users who think that way, my workflow is mainly to 
> use `C-h f` to find the help of
> the function I'm interested in. This is where not properly namespaced 
> libraries are hurting me.
> 
> `C-h d` or `apropos` is plan B, and then I have to filter what is relevant 
> and not, and also because the result
> set of `C-h d` is so big scrolling inside my Emacs becomes sluggish, which is 
> not pleasant. So usually a this
> point I go online and search, and fall on Xah-Lee's page, EmacsWiki, or 
> stackoverflow.

If I may: your strategy is sub-optimal.  When looking for a function
whose name you don't know, the first place to look is in the ELisp
manual.  Thus, for finding functions that deal with alists, the first
thing to try is "i alist RET" in the ELisp manual.  Here "alist" is
not a part of a function's name, it's a topic which you are looking
for.  That is much more efficient than the sequence you described
above, because we take special care of having meaningful topics in the
indices of the manual, precisely to help in such situations.  (And my
advice is to always have the ELisp manual shown in some frame on your
display, so that you don't even need to type "C-h i" etc. to get to
it.)

If you know _something_ about the function's name, then constructing a
proper regexp from what you know and using "C-u C-h a" might also be
efficient enough, especially if you cannot come up with a topic
specific enough to give to Info's 'i' command.

But at this point I'm completely confused about your central argument,
because my original mentioning of "C-h d" was regarded as missing the
point, and you objected to the very idea of searching the
documentation.  Quote:

>     I think "C-h d alist RET" is your friend.
> 
> You miss the central point of my argument. The problem is not that the doc is 
> hard to find, it's that I *have* to find it to know which are the related 
> functions.
> 
> It is much easier for the mind to think in terms of namespaces, here are 
> examples from other languages:

So now I'm no confused because my conclusion from the above was that
you don't want to use the documentation features, but you now
evidently disagreed with that conclusion.  Sorry.