Re: tree-sitter and emacs-devel

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2020 12:01:38 -0400
> 
> FWIW, re-reading over the discussions around emacs-tree-sitter of the
> last few days, I must say I'm not proud: if I were a contributor to
> tree-sitter and/or emacs-tree-sitter, all this squabbling over how
> tree-sitter "should" work (from people who have not been involved in
> either of those and don't have any practical experience of how it
> performs or why it's designed that way) would make me run away screaming
> and promising myself never to come back to that mad house.

I actually think that this discussion brought up several important
issues and topics (and I don't mean my own messages) that should be
considered if such technology is to become part of Emacs (and I very
much hope it will).  Yes, there's quite a bit of noise, as in any
discussion, but that's inevitable.  The alternative is to invent your
own wheel each time, and make all the same mistakes.

I remember a similar situation on the emacs-bidi mailing list 15 years
ago when the bidirectional editing support for Emacs was just a pipe
dream.  Many of the ideas expressed there I tossed, but some are now
part of our implementation, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to hear
them.  I'm also glad that Gerd Moellmann was there to provide his
perspective on what would and what wouldn't be viable, I would have
never arrived at the current design without his guidance, not without
making several grave mistakes anyway.