Re: [ELPA] New package: transient

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Typical examples: is it `multibyte-string-p` or `string-multibyte-p`,
>> `file-name-absolute-p` or `absolute-file-name-p`, ... ?
> Then "C-u C-h a WORDS..." is your friend.

Nope, way too slow.  I shouldn't have to do anything more than `str-mul TAB`.
The only reason I have to do more is because of the accidental naming 
inconsistency.

We can't solve all problems by careful naming.  But that doesn't mean we
shouldn't improve our naming when there's a clearly better choice.

>> The regexp functions mentioned elsewhere in this thread are another good
>> example
> No, that's a different example, because a lot of regexp functions
> don't have "regexp" in their names.

It's a different example, yes, but I think it's a very good one.
I use those functions often enough to remember their names, luckily, but
for the more occasional user it's not nearly as simple.

>> Yes, we can try and improve completion, but we have a real underlying
>> problem of irregular naming and completion would just help us paper
>> over it.
> The command "C-u C-h d regexp RET" brings up 111 matching functions.
> Who will have patience looking through that list, unless the likely
> candidates are near the beginning?

IIUC that means you agree with my argument?

> I don't object to this.  I'm just saying that the hope this will allow
> you to quickly find that-function-you-almost-remember-the-name-of are
> overly optimistic.

We impose a prefix convention on the rest of the Elisp world, and while
some authors don't like it, I find that it is not just useful much more
generally than to avoid conflicts, so we should try and use it for
Emacs's core as well.

It's not a new opinion, BTW: I started doing that back in Emacs-21 with
the newcomment.el package which tried to stick to the "comment-" prefix
even for things which previously used a different name.


        Stefan