RE: help-fns.el patch for commands to describe options and commands

[Drew Adams]

> > Yes. When you are looking for a command, you don't want to see a zillion
> > non-interactive functions as candidates. This cuts down that noise
> > *considerably*.
>
> I could buy that.  But those users for whom it matters most won't know to
> use the C-u prefix.  And usually the C-u prefix means something like "give
> me more control", so it would make more sense to only list
> commands/options
> and let C-u specify that we actually want to see all functions/variables.

Yes, that might make more sense, and some other commands work just that way
(but it is not "usually" the case). But the command is called
`describe-function' (or `describe-variable'), so it could be argued that it
should by default do what its name says.

There is also legacy to consider, FWIW.

`C-u' means lots of different things, depending on the command. A common
meaning is that it does something related but a bit different (and often
less common). The special meaning of wider scope is not general, but it does
apply to some other help commands, such as `apropos'. "Give me more control"
doesn't mean much to me. One could argue that restricting the scope is using
more control - or the opposite - or whatever.

The users for whom it matters most, in the sense of finding the command,
will find and use `describe-command' instead. The users for whom it matters
most for `describe-function' to have this optional behavior are probably not
newbies. I, for one, use `C-u C-h f' instead of `describe-command'. But
that's mainly because I have not bound `describe-command' to a key.