Re: Rationalising c[ad]\{2,5\}r.

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org>]

Artur Malabarba writes:

 > > Has this slick cl-* paint job perhaps gotten out of hand?
 > 
 > Well, it's not exactly getting worse. It's the same it's always
 > been, isn't it?

No, it is in no way the same as it has always been.  Originally cl.el
and cl-macs.el simply added the Common Lisp functionality (often
incomplete, sometimes arguably buggy) to the top-level pseudo-
namespace.  RMS always vetoed adding these facilities to the core
language, and cl-lib has been around for a few years, I guess, but
this business of moving everything out of the core pseudo-namespace
and in to the "cl-" pseudo-namespace is only a year or so old.

I assume the grand plan is something like "keep the core pseudo-
namespace as small as possible to make it easier to move to a Scheme
core (presumably Guile) by 2050".  The thing is, Emacs Lisp is a
Lisp2, and Scheme is a Lisp1.  Unless you're going to rewrite all of
lisp/ and ELPA in Scheme -- requiring a completely different style!
which *will* break people's heads -- you're going to have an emulation,
and the killer apps (cc-mode, gnus, AUCTeX, and org for starters) that
attract people to Emacs development will stay written in a Lisp2 for a
long (long long long ...) time.

FYI, XEmacs has placed its bet.  Although our senior Lisp implementor
is the first listed editor of R6RS, we're continuing to implement
Common Lisp features (most recently labels and multiple values) in the
C core.  (Not that we expect common use in mainstream Emacs.  The
point is that we don't think we're screwing ourselves by hitching our
wagon to the Lisp2 horse.)