From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 18:57:56 +0200 Message-ID: <83lhx759bf.fsf@gnu.org> References: <52FCD2B4.5080006@yandex.ru> <52FD9F1D.50205@yandex.ru> <83mwhucg1h.fsf@gnu.org> <878ute589i.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83d2iqc84m.fsf@gnu.org> <87wqgxkcr9.fsf@yandex.ru> <834n41db0d.fsf@gnu.org> <52FE2985.4070703@yandex.ru> <831tz5daes.fsf@gnu.org> <8738jlohd6.fsf@yandex.ru> <83txc1bl83.fsf@gnu.org> <5300189A.9090208@yandex.ru> <83wqgv9fbj.fsf@gnu.org> <20140216180712.236069f6@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <83sirj9cyp.fsf@gnu.org> <20140217203145.71a849f7@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <837g8t8ouc.fsf@gnu.org> <87mwho68qu.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <83k3cs7898.fsf@gnu.org> <8761ocsai9.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83r46z69ir.fsf@gnu.org> <51BC3499-D4E8-4CD8-9ED3-523D8013C439@gmail.com> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1392829083 2548 80.91.229.3 (19 Feb 2014 16:58:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 16:58:03 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: chad Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Feb 19 17:58:10 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WGATK-00051q-AQ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 17:58:10 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60519 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WGATK-0001eL-0C for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:58:10 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:51223) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WGAT4-0001Se-S0 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:58:01 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WGASw-0004hu-Tx for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:57:54 -0500 Original-Received: from mtaout21.012.net.il ([80.179.55.169]:53730) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WGASw-0004hR-LW for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:57:46 -0500 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout21.012.net.il by a-mtaout21.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0N19006005CHNS00@a-mtaout21.012.net.il> for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 18:57:44 +0200 (IST) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([87.69.4.28]) by a-mtaout21.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0N19006DI5S8EF90@a-mtaout21.012.net.il>; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 18:57:44 +0200 (IST) In-reply-to: <51BC3499-D4E8-4CD8-9ED3-523D8013C439@gmail.com> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.169 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:169762 Archived-At: > From: chad > Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 21:33:26 -0800 > Cc: emacs >=20 > To some degree, but (my impression is that) Emacs stops a lot of > changes at the need for support on more platforms than the submitte= r > can easily develop on. Can you give a couple of examples? In any case, this is mainly relevant to the C level; on the Lisp level, the code is mostly platform independent. > > Which projects don=92t? >=20 > Most software projects today are much smaller, more nimble, and > piecemeal-clockwork than emacs. Emacs was built in a heavily > monolithic era, and continues with most of that lineage. Far more > software projects today are assembled from many interlocking pieces > of libraries, middleware, and plugin code. Again, there are good > reasons for this, but it has a cost, and much of that cost is > expressed as a high barrier to entry. But then it's not very useful to talk about this, because obviously Emacs will never become as small as those projects, or somehow will b= e divided into many almost unrelated sub-projects. There's nothing we can do about Emacs being a large and complex package. > Another thing that hits Emacs: people working on changing or extend= ing > Eclipse do it IN java, which is the same language they use Eclipse > FOR. While there are surely Emacs developers using Emacs to develop > Emacs Lisp, theyre doing so mostly just for Emacs, not for anything > else; this internal focus shows in the results. Not sure what you want to say here. Is it that most people don't kno= w Lisp and need to learn it? > Emacs own C code is highly idiosyncratic. ??? When did you last look at the C sources of a comparable project, like GDB or GCC? Or Guile, for that matter? > Again, Im aware that there are good reasons for all of these things > to be true, but each of them makes it harder for people to make > significant contributions to Emacs, which is the topic at hand. It's not useful, IMO, to discuss circumstances we cannot possibly change. We need to make contributing as simple as possible, but no simpler. Finding that golden path is the challenge that is worth discussing.