RE: emacs-lisp-docstring-fill-column: Why?

[Drew Adams]

        Why does this variable exist? Doesn't buffer-local variable
        fill-column do everything that is needed?

    It fails to distinguish between comments and doc strings.

So, maybe say that in the doc? As I pointed out, this variable is not even
mentioned in the doc.

Users will be confused when they find that changing the fill-column no
longer has any effect on filling doc strings - and they will have no easy
way to find out what is going on. I kept changing the fill column a few
times, thinking I must have done it wrong.

Worse, they may think that they have successfully set the fill column for
doc strings by setting fill-column, so they may think that doc strings are
being filled to the column they defined, only to discover this gotcha much
later. IOW, they might do C-u C-x f 68 (or 62), and proceed merrily to use
M-q, without noticing that their fill-column change had no effect on the doc
strings.