From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Preview: portable dumper Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2016 14:36:04 +0000 Message-ID: <20161203143603.GA6921@acm.fritz.box> References: <83inr2oje6.fsf@gnu.org> <83bmwuogfb.fsf@gnu.org> <878trydrbo.fsf@red-bean.com> <83a8cem1eq.fsf@gnu.org> <83zikdl7oo.fsf@gnu.org> <83y3zxkwms.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1480775805 13502 195.159.176.226 (3 Dec 2016 14:36:45 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2016 14:36:45 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Cc: kfogel@red-bean.com, Daniel Colascione , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Dec 03 15:36:40 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1cDBQe-0002U6-3Z for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 03 Dec 2016 15:36:40 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51386 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cDBQh-0008Uj-PG for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 03 Dec 2016 09:36:43 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:55660) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cDBQY-0008Ud-7A for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 03 Dec 2016 09:36:35 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cDBQV-00041q-3B for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 03 Dec 2016 09:36:34 -0500 Original-Received: from ocolin.muc.de ([193.149.48.4]:38278 helo=mail.muc.de) by eggs.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cDBQU-000419-P6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 03 Dec 2016 09:36:31 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 94747 invoked by uid 3782); 3 Dec 2016 14:36:25 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p548C6318.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [84.140.99.24]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Sat, 03 Dec 2016 15:36:23 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 7931 invoked by uid 1000); 3 Dec 2016 14:36:04 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <83y3zxkwms.fsf@gnu.org> X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: FreeBSD 9.x [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 193.149.48.4 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:209979 Archived-At: Hello, Eli. I haven't really been following this thread, but one tangential thing in it jumped out at me: On Sat, Dec 03, 2016 at 02:47:07PM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > From: Daniel Colascione > > Cc: kfogel@red-bean.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org > > Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2016 01:34:42 -0800 [ .... ] > > What evidence would convince you that you were incorrect? > That's easy: a significant increase in the number of active developers > working on the C level. I have made quite a lot of changes at the C level, but I'm not really a "core C level" developer. However, it feels that an unusually high proportion of C level changes I have hacked or proposed have been rejected. ("Unusual" when compared to lisp level changes.) Examples include: (i) Changing the method of syntax.c scanning backwards over comments. My changes found their way into branch comment-cache in 2016-03. Despite this change having been extensively discussed in emacs-devel, and sort of "approved", the final patch was never considered on its merits. The ostensible reason was that it used a cache which wasn't the syntax-ppss cache. (ii) Around 2015-11-17, I proposed a patch to fix bug #21869 and bug #21333, with top line of the commit message being "Invoke window-size-change-functions after changing echo area height.". The problem here was that window-size-change-functions was sometimes being called twice. You rejected my patch because you were "not keen" on changing the order of calls in the display engine because we "didn't fully understand what was going on". Again, I don't think this proposed patch was really considered on its merits. (iii) Earlier this year, we were having problems because some primitives were not calling before-change-functions and after-change-functions the way we might wish. My offer to analyse the code and amend it so that all primitives would call b-c-f and a-c-f predictably was declined, the proviso being (if I remember correctly) "unless somebody writes a solid suite of unit tests". At the time of this rejection, I'd already invested some time on the analysis. It would be unfair not to mention that a lot of changes I've proposed at the C level, and hacked, have been accepted. Yet, at the same time, when I now consider tackling problems which need fixing at the C level, I feel a doubt in my mind that any proposed fix would be properly considered, and I weigh up this possibility before committing myself to spending any time on it. In short, I feel discouraged from working at the C level because of the above. I might not be the only developer who feels this. [ .... ] -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).