Re: [PATCH] emacs: Mention race condition safety in user visible documentation

Subject: Re: [PATCH] emacs: Mention race condition safety in user visible documentation

Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2012 08:45:00 +0000

To: Michal Sojka, Jani Nikula

Cc: notmuch@notmuchmail.org

From: Mark Walters


On Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:33:00 +0100, Michal Sojka <sojkam1@fel.cvut.cz> wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Feb 2012, Jani Nikula wrote:
> > On Feb 19, 2012 12:44 AM, "Michal Sojka" <sojkam1@fel.cvut.cz> wrote:
> > >
> > > After recent rework of a/A/x/X key bindings, the important paragraph in
> > > documentation of `notmuch-show-archive-thread' stayed hidden from users,
> > > because no key is bound to this function.
> > >
> > > This patch copies the important paragraph to the documentation of
> > > functions currently bound to keys.
> > 
> > Hi Michal, this was discussed earlier, and Dmitry convinced me that the
> > code does exactly what the user expects it to do (archives only the
> > messages in the buffer) so it would be unnecessary and confusing to have
> > this documentation. It could be added as a comment for developers I
> > guess.
> 
> I'm not sure. As a developer, I'm used to think about race conditions
> and the mentioned documentation sounds very racy to me. I guess a lot of
> other notmuch users are developers who may think the same.
> 
> > >  (defun notmuch-show-archive-thread-then-next ()
> > > -  "Archive each message in thread, then show next thread from search."
> 
> What about changing it to "Archive each message in the current buffer, ..."?

I like this suggested wording (or perhaps "Archive all messages in the
current buffer, ..."). I do not think `Archive each message in thread' is
completely clear (is the thread the thread as it is now or as it was
then).

Best wishes

Mark


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