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From: ram-ashwin@YALE.ARPA (Ashwin Ram)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Improvement Suggestion for Gnu Emacs online documentation
Message-ID: <8708071405.AA13427@yale-celray.arpa>
Date: Fri, 7-Aug-87 10:05:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: yale-cel.8708071405.AA13427
Posted: Fri Aug  7 10:05:33 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Aug-87 01:47:02 EDT
Sender: daemon@eddie.MIT.EDU
Lines: 34


[Niels Mayer:]
>    #It would be really nice if the help-function documentation in gnuemacs
>    #would show the list of parameters to a function in addition to a
>    #description of the parameters

[Neil Smithline:]
>    I have to disagree with you.  This comment does provide full
>    information on the order of the arguments.


While I agree that reading through the documentation comment does provide
this information (*iff* the documentor wrote it carefully), I think the
original suggestion is an excellent one.  Calling describe-function should
automatically generate

        call-process (program infile buffer display &optional args):
        ...doc for call-process...

rather than

        call-process:
        ...doc for call-process...

This is useful even with well-written documentation; with poorly documented
code it is invaluable.  For the latter reason, the function-name + args
header should be generated automatically without relying on everyone to type
it in for every function they write.

-- Ashwin.

ARPA:    Ram-Ashwin@yale
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