From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Dan Nicolaescu Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: MSDOS support Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:17:57 -0700 Message-ID: <200807310717.m6V7HvQk016586@sallyv1.ics.uci.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1217488721 7956 80.91.229.12 (31 Jul 2008 07:18:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:18:41 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jul 31 09:19:31 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1KOSRY-0000Os-7p for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:19:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:41561 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KOSQd-0006Zw-OM for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:18:27 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KOSQY-0006Zq-UB for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:18:22 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KOSQW-0006ZU-PZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:18:21 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=54405 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KOSQW-0006ZR-DI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:18:20 -0400 Original-Received: from mx20.gnu.org ([199.232.41.8]:17428) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KOSQW-0004Z3-6l for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:18:20 -0400 Original-Received: from sallyv1.ics.uci.edu ([128.195.1.109]) by mx20.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KOSQT-0008Ke-UB for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:18:18 -0400 X-ICS-MailScanner-Watermark: 1218093480.1848@T+JYfeJhwOkKiF0ellxs9g Original-Received: from mothra.ics.uci.edu (mothra.ics.uci.edu [128.195.6.93]) by sallyv1.ics.uci.edu (8.13.7+Sun/8.13.7) with ESMTP id m6V7HvQk016586 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:17:58 -0700 (PDT) Original-Lines: 37 X-ICS-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-ICS-MailScanner-SpamCheck: not spam, SpamAssassin (score=-1.44, required 5, autolearn=disabled, ALL_TRUSTED -1.44) X-ICS-MailScanner-From: dann@mothra.ics.uci.edu X-detected-kernel: by mx20.gnu.org: Solaris 10 (beta) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:101784 Archived-At: Emacs running on MSDOS was probably a technical wonder (Eli and all other people that made it possible deserve kudos for this excellent work), and probably it was very important at the time. But at this time supporting this platform does not seem useful anymore. Wouldn't it be a good idea to remove the MSDOS support? The main reason is that there is no evidence that there are any emacs users still using this proprietary platform. The MSDOS support has been broken in CVS for almost one year. There were no complaints from any users. The removal of the MSDOS support was announced last year and widely publicized in the first round of old platform removals. We received no comments from any user about MSDOS, so RMS formally approved the removal. It was not removed because Eli said he _might_ want to make it run again. The impact of MSDOS on the code is very high, there are hundreds or #ifdef MSDOS/DJGPP/GO32 just in the src directory. Not having those #ifdefs would simplify the code and make it easier to read and maintain. MSDOS is the only supported platform that does not define "subprocesses", that's another chunk of code that is special-cased for MSDOS. There is an active burden from keeping this non-working port in the tree: file names need to be chopped to fit into the 8.3 format (last time was just one week ago). There's no guarantee that MSDOS code will ever work again, but given the absence of users, it does not seem something worthwhile doing, so better get rid of if sooner rather than later.