Re: new apropos feature in Emacs-22

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 09:52:38 -0600 (CST)
> From: Luc Teirlinck <address@hidden>
> CC: address@hidden
> 
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
>    This feature (and any ad-hoc rules it implements) was discussed at
>    length around the time the feature was added.  Please be sure to read
>    those discussions before you suggest to change the decisions made back
>    then.
> 
> Nothing in that discussion changes the fact that:
> 
>    (string-equal (regexp-quote regexp) regexp)
> 
> is just a horrible way to distinguish a regexp from a list of keywords.

Please don't get angry with me: I was only trying to say that the
seemingly arbitrary rule of "at least two matching keywords" might
have some valid reasons which are spelled out in the discussions.

I do agree that the doc strings should be updated to reflect the fact
that a list of keywords are accepted as well as regexps.

> To the person who wants to use a regexp, it is confusing that
> `M-x apropos-documentation RET font lock RET" produces tons of
> unexpected matches and unexpected highlighting.

I think the idea was that a list of words is more natural input at
that point than a regexp.  People nowadays are used to Google-style
queries more than to regexps.  FWIW, I rarely myself use regexps in
apropos.

> To the person who reads the Emacs manual and knows nothing about
> regexps, it is even a lot more confusing that things like:
> 
> M-x apropos-documentation RET *scratch* buffer RET
> 
> does not find any matches, even though there are several places matching
> both keywords.
> 
> Things like:
> 
> M-x apropos-documentation RET .emacs init RET
> 
> are probably even worse, since _some_ matches are actually displayed,
> but not the ones the user may be trying to find.

I think these problems were raised and discussed back then, but I
might be wrong.