Re: ELPA submission: drepl (REPL protocol)

[João Távora]

On Thu, Nov 2, 2023 at 4:08 PM Augusto Stoffel <arstoffel@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu,  2 Nov 2023 at 14:26, João Távora wrote:
>
> > Two notes here:
> >
> > * If this generic is something that anyone else besides drepl.el
> >   is meant to add methods to, then it shouldn't be a '--' symbol.
>
> Well, those symbols are somewhere in between "public" and "private".  As
> a user you shouldn't fiddle with them (unless you know what you're
> doing).  If anyone wanted to implement a subclass elsewhere, they
> certainly would have to add methods to some '--' symbols.  But then the
> burden of keeping up with changes in drepl.el is on them and not me.
>
> I suppose that's what people understand by double-dashed symbols...?

Often, there are two types of interfaces to a library: the user interface
and the programmer's interface, aka the API.  The symbols for both of
them should be external meaning changes to their semantics could result,
respectively, in breaking a user's setup or breaking the program.using
the API.

Also it's fine to offer both in the same Elisp package, of course.

Anyway, that's what '--' means.  It means: this may change without
warning.  If you publish an API based on '--' symbols, then it's not
much of an API IMHO, at least I wouldn't want to write a program
against it.

João