⭐ Elisp sucks (and can we make it suck less?)

Of course naming is a hard problem, but it's not that big of an issue in some other languages:

• in C++/Java (OO languages), you can refer to the documentation of the objects' class, e.g. std::vector
  granted, someone has to generate the documentation in the first place, but in the worst case you can check the class' source code/header file
  
• in Python/JS you can do the same (e.g. python's list docs)
  in addition, you can use the REPL (something like dir/vars) to discover which methods/properties the object has
  
• Haskell is not OO, but you can use something like Hoogle to discover all functions that operate on a given data type
  

In untyped language like Elisp all bets are off, the only way to find out how to use the object are

• rely on the documentation (and it's a mess)
  
• read the package source code to discover all the functions available, perhaps search over variable names
  this is usually what I have to resort to, even for builtin packages like org-mode
  

This is very important because dealing with list-like structures is a massive part of any programming.

Similarly, something we have to deal with all the time, and especially in a text editor.

And again, a very important part of programming – how to make your programs behave predictably under any circumstances?

• [2020-04-12] another excellent piece of standard elisp library: What happens if a connection error/HTTP error happens? Who the fuck knows 🤷 pic.twitter.com/ksR3C41VXk
  
  • [2020-04-12] Spoiler: it actually dumps HTTP headers in the buffer and you're meant to parse them manually I guess. Of course, often no one bothers and assumes it's succeded
    
    • [2020-04-12] Of course there are decent and modern requests-like libraries for elisp. I just want to raise awareness that standard elisp library is garbage and we should throw it away to stay sane.
      

https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/5jip0g/strange_replaceregexpinstring_behavior/

So, if you want case sensitive, do
(let ((case-fold-search nil))
     (replace-regexp-in-string "my" "your" "mycat.txt" t t)
)

fucking hell.. regexes in elisp are case sensitive, and that's controlled by a fucking variable. jesus

https://github.com/karlicoss/subprocess.el/blob/master/subprocess.el

maybe it's just org-mode thing since this is the only 'big' elisp system I worked with
example with org-element-set/adopt in exobrain source code
if it was language with 'real' types, it would be easy to dir() or somethign to see what methods are available
but maybe it would be less flexible, I dunno
on the other hands it means that you can always hack it somehow and then maybe figure out 'proper'
but discoverability really suffers

let bindings struct is really annoying, which discourages naming variables

собственно мотивационный пример на питоне

def normalize(vec):
   x, y = vec
   len = sqrt(x ** 2 + y ** 2)
   if len == 0:
       raise RuntimeError(f'bad vector {vec}')

   nx = x / len
   ny = y / len
   return (nx, ny)

на елиспе

(defun normalize (vec)
  (let* ((x   (car vec))
         (y   (cdr vec)))
         (len (sqrt (* x x) (* y y))))
    (if (=0 len)
        (error (format "bad vector %s" vec)))
    (let* ((nx (/ x len))
           (ny (/ y len)))
      `(,nx ,ny)))

а я хочу как-то так

(defun normalize (vec)
  (let' (x y) vec) ;; can't do in elisp?? maybe with cl-destructuring-bind...
  (let' len   (sqrt (* x x) (* y y)))
  (if (= 0 len)
      (error (format "bad vector %s" vec))
  (let' nx (/ x len)
        ny (/ y len))
  `(,nx ,ny)))

наверное это можно добиться если добавить какую-нибудь магию вроде макроса (scope ...), который эти let' правильно интерпретирует

sometimes though it arbitrarily reararnges parens. e..g I have to be really careful when pasting big source blocks from elsewhere

advice-patch

i.e. I think people who advocate for REPL are pitching for a completely wrong thing – I want to keep my code tidy, it's just nice to execute it instantly

to be fair, same is probably true for e.g. sublime?

let's compare: e.g. vimscript. When I used vim I haven't even attempted to customize it, I tried once and the whole thing was just futile.