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RE: [External] : dynamic-completion-mode doc


From: Drew Adams
Subject: RE: [External] : dynamic-completion-mode doc
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2023 13:58:52 +0000

> [written up for gnu-emacs-help but posted here on second thoughts]
> 
> I'm trying to find out what (dynamic-completion-mode) does.
> 
> C-h f dynamic-completion-mode
> C-h v dynamic-completion-mode
> 
> Only show the boilerplate documentation.  But I cannot understand what
> the impact of the command is, or what changes when minor-mode
> dynamic-completion-mode is turned on or off.
> 
> [I've used what is called "dynamic completions" before:
> 
> 1. use M-/ dabbrev-exapand to complete the word at point
> 
> 2. Use completion-table-dynamic to support completion-at-point for lisp
> modes like sly or slime
> 
> 3. I used comint-dynamic-complete-as-filename for a long time until its
> functionality was handicapped and then obsoleted then removed, and I've
> had to locally revert the changes to "comint-filename-completion"
> "comint-dynamic-complete-filename" to get the functionality back.
> 
> This makes me think I've misunderstood what "dynamic completion" means,
> so perhaps I should start with what dynamic-completion-mode is supposed
> to do.

Others have pointed you to the Commentary in the
Lisp file, `completion.el'.  That's really all
there is, I'm afraid.  It's relatively complete,
but it, and the library itself, was written many
moon ago, and the presentation is not as good as
one might expect nowadays.

That said, it's a good, interesting, and still
useful library.  But it's not well known, to put
it mildly.  It could really use some love and
understanding - some "modernization", taking
advantage of the last 30 years of Emacs dev.

I have hopes someone might get interested in
that, e.g., leveraging its approach/features to
either improve it or improve some other Emacs
library/feature.  Its description might give the
impression that it's the same or similar to some
other existing approaches, but I don't think so.
It might at least serve as food for thought...

It's really quite simple to use, but yeah, you
need to read the Commentary and give it a try.



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