[asdf-devel] [PATCH] add &allow-other-keys to LOAD-SYSTEM, COMPILE-SYSTEM, TEST-SYSTEM

[james anderson]

On 2010-02-24, at 16:19 , Robert Goldman wrote:

> On 2/24/10 Feb 24 -9:09 AM, james anderson wrote:
>>
>> i wondered that. looks like markdown link-w/o-the-reference-id
>> syntax. (is supported by docudown?)
>> but then, it's not clear were it finds it's definition. (work-in-
>> progress?)
>>
>> which brings up larger questions.
>> as i was writing docstrings for de.setf.amqp, i wondered, while
>> markdown is most definitely less obnoxious than html, why does a lisp
>> documentation system require markup in its docstrings?
>> when the documentation is processed, a closed world can be arranged.
>>
>> the documentation generation code - as i've read and written it,
>> crawls packages and/or live images, so there's a lot it can do
>> without the markup hints. given that information, it is possible to
>> recognize almost every pertinent reference without the hints in terms
>> of bindings on symbols present in every package reachable from the
>> respective function definition minus common-lisp.
>
> I don't completely follow this argument.  Let's say that I want to say
> "see also OPERATE" in my docstring.  Without /some/ form of markup,  
> how
> do you detect that this is a cross-reference (without solving the  
> whole
> AI problem :->)?  Similarly, how do you know that this is a cross
> reference to a function, instead of a type or variable?

i do follow your argument, but i do not agree with your conclusion.
yes, the the reference is not context free.
no, i suggest, given a coherent context, one does not have to solve  
the halting problem to make a reasonable quess.
yes, "see also" does not add anything to the nature of a found binding.
on the other hand, meta-. is mostly satisfactory - even with no  
context at all.
and then, there is always the possibility to mediate through an index.