Re: Language translation proposal

[Mikael Djurfeldt <mdj at mdj dot nada dot kth dot se>]

Richard Stallman <rms@santafe.edu> writes:

> In general, the plan looks good.  I have one specific comment.
> 
>     When opening a file for reading, Guile will read the first few lines,
>     looking for the string "-*- LANGNAME -*-", where LANGNAME can be
>     either the long or short form of the name.
> 
> If Guile reads these comments, it should handle the full spec for them,
> which includes -*-foo: bar; mode: langname; quux: yes-*-.
> 
> But I am not sure it is a good idea for programs to use these
> comments to decide the actual syntax.  Some sort of intuition tells
> me it is not a good idea.
> 
> For example, gcc won't try to use -*-C-*- to determine that a file
> contains C code.  Though it will use the file name to decide.

Yes, I think I see what you mean.  Letting an editor make guesses
about how to best present a file to the user is one thing.  Letting
commentaries actually determine the semantics of the file is
different.

I'll "disable" that part of the proposal, but let the text (updated
with your suggestion about the full syntax) remain in the document for
reference.