Re: address@hidden: RE: cannot find :enable in Elisp manualindex]

[David Kastrup]

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

>> From: "Drew Adams" <address@hidden>
>
>> 2) Looking up ":type" as opposed to "type" is in no way analogous
>> to looking up "'keymap" as opposed to "keymap". I can't believe
>> that you would suggest such a thing.
>
> Well, then maybe we have quite different perceptions of the Emacs
> Lisp syntax and semantics.  The colon plays a role that is very
> similar to the quote: it is used to mean the literal symbol name as
> opposed to the value of the symbol.

Not really: it makes the symbol a self-quoting one, but the colon is
part of that symbol.  You can easily see this by typing
M-: :test RET

>> It's hard to imagine why you would "think index search is so much
>> more powerful that `s', _even with the colon problem_."
>
> Well, maybe now you understand that better.

While I don't agree with Drew's way of asking for things (though in
all fairness I am probably not much better), I think having keywords
starting with colon indexed would be definitely appropriate and
expected behavior.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum