From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Nic Ferrier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Emacs Lisp's future (was: Guile emacs thread (again)) Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 09:22:32 +0100 Message-ID: <87y4tizmev.fsf@ferrier.me.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1410942197 27779 80.91.229.3 (17 Sep 2014 08:23:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 08:23:17 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Sep 17 10:23:10 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 1XUAW5-00007M-QB for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 10:23:09 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42719 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUAW5-0004SK-5v for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 04:23:09 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:42195) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUAVv-0004Ra-52 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 04:23:06 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUAVn-00020d-Ln for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 04:22:59 -0400 Original-Received: from static.17.66.46.78.clients.your-server.de ([78.46.66.17]:55357 helo=po1.ferrier.me.uk) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUAVn-0001zu-G1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 04:22:51 -0400 Original-Received: from nicferrier-dell-xps (140.35.155.90.in-addr.arpa [90.155.35.140]) by po1.ferrier.me.uk (Postfix) with ESMTPA id ADC73AC0A95; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 10:37:41 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from nicferrier-XPS13-9333 (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by nicferrier-dell-xps (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 306946025B; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 09:22:32 +0100 (BST) In-Reply-To: jwviokn4n6w.fsf-monnier@emacs.gnu.org X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 78.46.66.17 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:174404 Archived-At: Stefan Monnier wrote: > First, of course we can keep on evolving Elisp on its own. This has > worked OK for the last 30 years, so it's not such a terrible choice. > The main problems I see with that: > - Elisp is slow and as CPUs aren't getting faster, its slowness makes itself > noticed more often. > - Lack of some features, most notably FFI and concurrency. > - Lack of manpower. > > This last point is for me the strongest motivation to try and move to > some other system, where we could use other people's work. I don't see that this is going to happen though. Emacs is an unusual system. Moving the extension language to another community is just going to cause more arguing along the lines of "this is how X lang does it" vs "but we're Emacs and don't want to do it like that". My view is we should improve the contribution process to get more manpower for elisp. We have been doing that as a community. As a reminder we have: - adopted packaging allowing many more people to contribute pure elisp - accepted a move to the most commonly used support tools (git, etc...) - started to talk about changing the documentation format to a more common format I see a new spirit of openness and willingness to change in the Emacs community and it's really great. I would implore you, my fellow emacs hackers, not to make too hasty a decision on platform. Guile-Emacs may be cool, but if we can increase developer diversity in Emacs through git and so on (I for one will be contributing to the core thanks to this) then we may get all the advantages of the Guile VM without having to go to Guile. I'm sure there is more that we could do to get more man and woman power. I hope that we consider those things as well as techy projects like switching to Guile's VM. Nic