Re: Interactive hat.

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Stefan!

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 12:30:38PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> >> The ability to use a symbol property for that is a hack that can come
> >> in handy at times, but it's still just a hack.

> > I don't think so.  It is the standard canonical use of symbol
> > properties.  A quick bit of grepping reveals 4278 uses of `put'.  Of the
> > ones in the first 100 or so, they all look recording properties of the
> > function rather than the symbol itself.

> And they're all hacks (some of them a bit less so because the property
> is actually installed as part of the symbol's definition (I'm thinking
> of the `declare' thingy in macros used to set the indent and edebug
> properties).

Well, what can one say?  The property list is part of a symbol.  The
other parts are its name, its function and its value.  If it's a hack for
a property to describe the function, it's just as much a hack for the
property to describe the value.  So a property describes either the
property list (which is non-sensical) or the name, or the property is
free-standing.

So I think you're arguing that a property can only properly describe the
name part of a symbol.

Or, maybe, just maybe, using properties in the customary way isn't such a
bad hack after all.  :-)

>         Stefan

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).