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Re: [O] Thoughts on weaving variable documentation
From: |
Aaron Ecay |
Subject: |
Re: [O] Thoughts on weaving variable documentation |
Date: |
Sat, 21 Jun 2014 01:58:25 -0400 |
User-agent: |
Notmuch/0.17+171~gbc10f63 (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/24.3.50.2 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) |
Hi Grant,
2014ko ekainak 20an, Grant Rettke-ek idatzi zuen:
>
> Good morning,
>
> A lot of people are weaving their Emacs init files for the obvious
> reason: it is difficult to remember why
> we configured stuff and other people definitely won't know why we did
> it. There is a common operation
> that occurs though when other people read our Emacs init:
>
> 1. They open it up in Emacs
> 2. Find what looks interesting
> 3. Do a C-h f or C-h v on it and learn about it
>
> Makes total sense.
>
> What I got curious about is for this specific use case, people
> scanning other people's configs, how I
> could make it easier. A thought is to weave the docstrings for
> variables right into the weaved file any
> time a variable is set. I am thinking something like this:
>
> 1. When the weave occurs
> 2. Look at each line of code that starts with a setq
> 3. Look up the docstring for the variable
> 4. TBD: Weave that documentation into the output.
>
> That is the idea, at least.
>
> My question is:
> 1. What are the standard mechanisms to do something like this within
> the ob lifecycle?
> 2. What do you think in general?
I don’t really see the use case. One of the best parts of developing
elisp in emacs is the level of interactive documentation:
describe-function, find-function, interactive info manuals, etc. It’s
there when you need it, but not in the way when you don’t. I almost
never read elisp code in a non-emacs environment (except for short
snippets in blog posts, I suppose).
FWIW, my wishlist for literate programming in org/elisp is something
like (in approximately increasing order of estimated difficulty):
- allow find-function/variable to jump to the location in an org file
where something is defined, rather than the tangled elisp file.
- allow org-mode text “near” a function definition to be used as the
function’s docstring (for describe-function et al.):
,----
| docstring docstring docstring
| #+begin_src elisp
| (defun foo ()
| ...)
| #+end_src
`----
rather than:
,----
| #+begin_src elisp
| (defun foo ()
| "docstring docstring docstring"
| ...)
| #+end_src
`----
- allow more features of underlying source code editing modes to be used
in org buffers directly (no org-edit-special context switch needed).
For me, this would include:
- eval-defun (C-M-x)
- paredit
- eldoc
- auto-complete (company etc.)
For your use case, a mode which shows the docstring for a fn/var in a
tooltip on mouseover/keystroke could be added (I couldn’t find
anything like this already existing for emacs-lisp-mode, which is
kind of surprising to me – but I did not look very hard)
- make it easier to develop parts of org using these LP features.
Cheers,
--
Aaron Ecay