Re: Is there a need for a module system

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Gerd Möllmann <gerd.moellmann@gmail.com>
> Cc: tomas@tuxteam.de,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2022 12:24:15 +0100
> 
> The reason being that I think one cannot look at specific Lisp programs
> like gnus or org in isolation. If I look at Melpa, it says it has 5299
> packages.  Add GNU Elpa, for which I couldn't readily find the number,
> and Emacs' Lisp, and subtract what's in common.  That's pretty large
> from my POV.

Does someone really use 5299 packages (or any number close to that) in
the same Lisp program?

IOW, why should I care how many unused packages lie around on my disk?
As long as I don't have them in my program, they will never cause any
trouble.

> I'd rather ask is that a good enough solution?  Can we do better?  Is it
> worth the effort?  Can it be done in the first place?  Does it perhaps
> enable additional things?

All good questions, but they must be considered in some relevant
context, IMO.  "Good enough solution" for what problems and what
purposes?

Emacs is enormously large.  Already there's not a single person who
can be familiar with everything we have, even in the core packages,
like subr.el, simple.el, etc.  Or even come close to that.  Myself and
Lars are learning something new almost every day.  We definitely miss
some problems that get introduced and we are definitely doing an
imperfect job of keeping Emacs clean, due to this enormity alone.
Making Emacs even larger and more complex in these conditions needs
very good reasons in my book.  So the question of need are very
pertinent, IMO.