Re: ehelp woes, or why I hate a module that I love so much

[Juanma Barranquero <lektu@terra.es>]

On Thu, 04 Jul 2002 13:02:12 +0200, Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> wrote:

> I think having Emacs support Guile would be very visible to users, as
> it likely would mean having threads which UI wise is probably the most
> important new feature added to Emacs since it started supporting
> windowing systems.

OK, threads per se are good, but why should they be contingent on using
Guile? They are now, because the plan is switching to Guile someday and
it's absurd to duplicate efforts to discard them soon after. But perhaps
adding thread support to Emacs/elisp is easier than doing the conversion
from Emacs/elisp to Emacs/Guile. Who knows?

From my (admittedly not very informed) perspective, the Emacs/Guile
thing seems to be going nowhere (or, if it is going somewhere, it's
doing it very quietly and off side). Meanwhile, some developments seem
stagnated (though I'm very glad to see the lexbind work), and some
people has abandoned Emacs *because* of Guile.

I'm not going to reopen that Pandora box. It seems a decission was
reached some time ago and it's not going to change. But I wonder, if a
poll where made into the people who's actively developing Emacs (and not
just Guile), how many would think the conversion is worth the trouble.

> But generally I agree, most developers help a project because they
> find something fun to work on, and if that is discouraged they get
> bored and do something else instead

Don't take me wrong. I agree with that, but I also believe that thinking
on a bigger scale and having goals is good. It's just that one issue and
the other shouldn't be (felt) such at odds.

(Disclaimer: the longer the message, the less understandable is my
English. Sorry about that.)

                                                           /L/e/k/t/u