Re: forward-comment and syntax-ppss

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 08.12.2016 22:15, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> I propose, additionally, a new buffer local
> variable which, if non-nil, will contain a buffer position to use in
> place of the "1".

That's functionally equivalent to my proposed patch with 
syntax-ppss-dont-widen, except for the case where that buffer local 
value turns out to be higher than POS.

Can parse-partial-sexp parse backwards?

> Our primitives `car', `cdr', `list', etc. also don't say
> what the intention behind them is; they just work.  Narrowing is what it
> is.  Simple and austere.

All the primitives you've enumerated above work on simple values and 
don't change the buffer state.

Narrowing is anything but austere.

> Complexifying narrowing by introducing a
> notion of "intention" would surely make it more difficult to use and
> possibly foul things up massively.

The reasons for it have been described plenty of times. And no, it will 
be pretty trivial conceptually.

> As I said above, I think syntax-ppss should be retired and replaced by a
> function which does parse-partial-sexp starting at 1 rather than
> (point-min).

You keep repeating that word (replace), as though that solves anything.

If we introduce the new function and all of Emacs core switches to it, 
and that function doesn't have an "escape hatch", the multi-mode 
packages will be hung out to dry.