revising ev, was: problem with "concatting variables"
Subject: revising ev, was: problem with "concatting variables"
From: Robert Dodier
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2013 02:36:34 +0000 (UTC)
On 2013-09-26, John Lapeyre <lapeyre.math122a at gmail.com> wrote:
> It would be nice to have a statement on deprecated features.( Maybe it
> already exists) ... to the extent that the experts can agree on
> deprecated features. I keep forgetting what they are and start trying
> to use something that I forgot is evil.
Well, it's simple. featurep(<symbol>, evil) to see if <symbol> has the
'evil' property, and propvars(evil) to return all such symbols.
... Ha, ha, ha! Thank you folks, I'll be here all week!
Jokes aside, there is only a short list of features considered evil,
and there might or might not be agreement about what's on the list,
and just how evil they might be.
* ev -- incomprehensible hodgepodge of functions
* '' -- surprising behavior in scripts
Well, now that you mention it,
* alias -- just causes confusion
> Or if not deprecated, state clearly that some feature has very
> limited use.
I'm opposed to that. I really can't stand moralizing "Well, you really
shouldn't be doing that" documentation. The documentation should simply
state what the feature does. It's up the reader to draw any conclusions.
If we really don't want some feature, just get rid of it.
best
Robert Dodier