Re: What's missing in ELisp that makes people want to use cl-lib?

[Po Lu]

João Távora <joaotavora@gmail.com> writes:

> Wow, sounds like a fantastic healthy work environment.  Do people
> ever leave the company?  Like, alive?

Sarcasm aside, most people have no trouble assenting to these
procedures.  Not when they yield good code whose meaning remains clear
for generations to come.

Dismissing the intrinsic merit to readable code should be a no-starter
hereabouts.

> You didn't say "list manipulation function" . You wrote "No Emacs
> built-in takes them".  That's false.  Take make-hash-table.  Oh noes,
> looks just like CL.  Guess you're going to hand-roll hash tables
> now, right? :-)

Hash tables don't count, because they were designed to be compatible
with the old CL hash table functions, just all that faster.

> Take make-process or json-serialize.  There are more.  Keyword
> arguments are in other Non-lisp languages too, as you probably
> know, they're called named parameters sometimes.  Heck C++
> has been pining for them for so long it's sad.

I don't know why make-process was introduced, but it enjoys the excuse
of accepting plenty of arguments.  json-serialize does not: its two
optional parameters don't even encounter the 7-argument limit for C
DEFUNs.

It is lamentable that the keyword argument illness has spread into C,
but that doesn't palliate its deficiencies.

> There is, because bad as it is, code gets jobs done that humans can't
> do.

I don't think anyone seriously believes what you claim here, in essence
that it is OK to install dismal code while being well aware of its
nature as such.

> No, but you do, in actual source code!  That was my point!  You
> have these fine abstractions to common operations like intersecting
> sets, finding indices, and so much more, and you prefer to handroll
> your expanded versions each time instead of going through a function
> of an established library.

These "fine abstractions" are also abstruse, while the set of primitives
you never hesitate to impugn have carried Emacs through its entire
existence.