how to speed up Lisp devel time

[Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org>]

One thing one could try is to replace boring, trivial stuff
with non-Lisp syntax and have that embedded.

For example setting up the interface.

Note: Over one in five interfaces in the Emacs source uses
Lisp and not the `interactive' format string. So it isn't just
me. It takes _a lot_ of time setting up the interface,
assigning default values, verifying indata, setting up
collections for completion, and so on.

Here is one example from my own code:

  ;; ...
  (interactive (if (numberp current-prefix-arg)
                   (list current-prefix-arg)
                 current-prefix-arg))
  (unless end
    (setq end 73))
  (unless step
    (setq step (min 10 (max 2 (/ end 10)))))
  (unless i
    (setq i 0))
  (unless (and (numberp i)    (<= 0 i)
               (numberp end)  (<  0 end)
               (numberp step) (<  0 step))
    (error "Bogus indata"))

This is 402 chars!

But here is a 135-char solution that expresses the same:

[
  end  :range     0<   :default 73         :prefix-arg
  step :range-cut 2-10 :default (/ end 10)
  i    :range     0<=  :default 0
]

And here is a 88 char solution:

[
  end  :r  0<   :d 73         :pa
  step :rc 2-10 :d (/ end 10)
  i    :r  0<=  :d 0
]

Also with: :prompt-string (:ps), :doc-string (:ds) ...

That way, we could keep Lisps elegance and power for where
people cared about it, for example solving interesting
algorithmic problems.

-- 
underground experts united
https://dataswamp.org/~incal