On Tue, Oct 5, 2021, 22:20 Richard Stallman <
rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> That would be a non-trivial effort and would bring grave confusion.
I don't see that it would cause grave confusion.
It would for me. I'd have to keep in mind exactly where I'm invoking help commands from. I've never done that.
> That's because, as you have well written elsewhere, the Lisp reader
> follows 's-foo' to 'string-library-foo' on this buffer but may follow
> it to 'system-library-foo' in another buffer.
That is true.
If the extension I proposed for C-h o is made, then C-h o s-foo RET
would present info on 'string-library-foo' in one buffer, and about
'system-library-foo' in another buffer. But if the help buffer
explains this clearly, it will make sense to the user, and it will be
useful.
Yes, you're right. If we're clear about what we're sitting the user, it's not so bad. That option is on the table.
Another simpler, less "revolutionary" option (can't find the right word) is to do what Eli suggested, having 'C-h f s-foo TAB' expand to the actual symbol name, according to the buffer, using the normal completion mechanisms of Emacs. Then the usual invariant of 'C-h f' showing global symbols would be kept.
We can upgrade from Eli's suggestion (which would seem simpler to implement), to your suggestion later.
João