Re: Gets rid of length in the docs. (issue 4965053)

[Trevor Daniels]

Mike Solomon wrote Monday, August 29, 2011 9:11 AM

> On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 07:45:04AM +0000, 
> address@hidden wrote:
>
> > I can't say I like this change: it makes a complex user
> > interface more complex.  Shouldn't we be moving in the
> > opposite direction?
>
> I disagree.

[snip description of change]

I quite agree the code simplification is good.

My point was about the user interface.  Many of
our users have difficulty with even simple overrides.
Changing the stem length was a simple concept for
them to understand: changing Y-extent is not.
Neither is using stem::length.  stem-begin and
stem-end are pretty irrelevant for most users; they
are not documented anywhere except the IR, so removing
them does not simplify the UI in a practical way.

Clearly this patch has to be applied; sorry if
you interpreted my comment to mean I was objecting
to it.  My intention was to raise a concern about
the general direction the UI was taking, and this
seems a further move away from simplification.

Fortunately the changed example appears quite deep
in the LM so this change is not too serious, even
though neither extents nor callbacks are covered
there (in the LM we try never to use a concept that
has not been explained earlier.)

Trevor