Re: Elisp: Setting column position?

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:23:23 -0800 (PST) Xah Lee <xahlee@gmail.com> wrote: 

XL> i vaguely recall also wanted move-to-column, but i recall thought it
XL> didn't exist. Yes of course i knew apropos, and elisp-index-search and
XL> reasonably familiar with elisp and its manual.

XL> I think it would be great that in the function's in-line doc, it would
XL> say related functions. For example, if one looks up on goto-line, then
XL> at the bottom it might say:

XL> See also: goto-char, move-to-column, ...

On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:29:45 -0800 (PST) Xah Lee <xahlee@gmail.com> wrote: 

XL> Note that listing related functions in a function's doc is in many
XL> programing manuals. e.g Mathematica, MS's JScript, PHP ... they are
XL> quite useful. Because for those not expert yet of a lang (which is
XL> majority), often they do not know similar functions or do not know if
XL> there's manual section that list such, and often are confused about
XL> the differences of many functions that seems the same ....

I agree this would be useful.  It's best done with tags IMO, rather than
explicitly listing the related functions.  For example, motion commands
should be tagged "motion" and then every command with that tag can
automatically list every motion command.  The key is that the extra work
is in classification, not in tediously listing every command's peers.

Tags I could use: motion, file, coding-system, menu, buffer, process

Each package should probably tag its commands with the package name.

Short tags are not always descriptive enough, but long tags get
unpleasantly verbose so the real art is in balancing between the two.

Anything more hierarchical than tags is painful to manage in the long run.

Ted