1

Exploring far-out init files, I found this here:

(defmacro section (name &rest a) `(progn ,@a))
(put 'section 'lisp-indent-function 'defun)

then it's used AFAICT as a sort of wrapper, not sure of the genius behind all this. Thought it would be a good thing to know. Can someone explain what it all means?

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3

It enables you to write code like this:

(section testing
  (setq a 1)
  (setq b 2))

(section configuration
  (evil-mode)
  (helm-mode))

This code expands to the following:

(progn
 (setq a 1)
 (setq b 2))

(progn
 (evil-mode)
 (helm-mode))

Normal people would write it like this:

;;; testing
(setq a 1)
(setq b 2)

;;; configuration
(evil-mode)
(helm-mode)

All in all, it's a cute trick. You can find out the above by using the macrostep package and seeing the expansion yourself.

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2
  • So it adds the idiom of saying "stuff inside this 'section' will be run together because it's all related stuff." Nice. Can't do this so deftly out in Blub-land.
    – 147pm
    Apr 26, 2019 at 17:59
  • Due to progn, the section form also returns the value of the final form which was evaluated.
    – phils
    Apr 27, 2019 at 1:37

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