RE: patch for thingatpt.el

[Drew Adams]

> I assume, if already at thing, thing-nearest- will
> also DTRT, so one key/command will be enough then.
> 
> Please let me raise still two other points at the
> occasion:
> 
> All thing-at-point forms might be very useful for
> immediate copying (and some more operations) IMO. 
> What about to make them callable interactivly?
> 
> Return-value of `symbol-at-point' is not consistent
> with other forms.
> 
> `symbol-at-point' interns symbol-name under
> point--as you told me kindly months ago--while 
> all other form deliver a portion of the
> buffer, a substring.
> 
> My suggestion is: let `symbol-at-point' behave as the
> rest. Then write (intern (symbol-at-point)) if the 
> interned symbol is needed.
> 
> That change will break some code now, but is more
> straightforward and looks promising on the long run.
> 
> It enables the set-up of a range of functions relying
> on thing-at-point. Otherwise you must always deal 
> separatly with symbol-at... 

Please start another thread for all of that. This thread is about a specific
patch. Additional proposals for different changes to thingatpt.el can be
discussed separately (preferably after this patch is applied).

Wrt the return value of `symbol-at-point', see the previous discussion, which I
referenced earlier. What you are after is called `symbol-name-at-point' in my
patch. A symbol is a symbol; a symbol name is a string.