From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Drifting towards a statically typed Emacs Lisp. [Was: Introducing 'safety' compilation parameter] Date: Thu, 09 May 2024 19:52:12 -0400 Message-ID: References: <86v83pahks.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="2749"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Alan Mackenzie Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri May 10 01:53:01 2024 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1s5DZM-0000RN-L8 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 10 May 2024 01:53:00 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1s5DYc-0002io-K6; Thu, 09 May 2024 19:52:14 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1s5DYb-0002ie-Dq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 09 May 2024 19:52:13 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1s5DYa-0003Gy-MC; Thu, 09 May 2024 19:52:12 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=Date:References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From: mime-version; bh=LLL7Ycr88Wblpn7kZNTHB9QIEewJwAvQHgiSVZqI3J8=; b=HlxIP+R2YQFb tntOwAhGsBlIp2k36YPcQVk9yvEe9o7paqZTckjrnrnETOntZ19ar/OymQdr3Pxma4OGGawNmIgy8 nkJDh5qlVFb18KfICojnrocktxu6W2VRYpRKCmAvsk7ODBQiTQEe0viMANtbnKzvTLx1eueFv1O1T Of71Oa9ClJKJ+Wboqd4yzQT+Op7BoPp3Zzv4WJOt9dVAZKihO94uJFdW4LV8LbKda9SJYd3ekaDGF IbXce4xkokEIizZWe+qYT6uW1wSWT0Ou1jEAlp3jZadqw7SXpKIU9wlzwYpanJlCBYSAcCQ5MpPB1 swysaJ+vJfrERhDpR2k3qQ==; Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1s5DYa-0006SX-3y; Thu, 09 May 2024 19:52:12 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from Alan Mackenzie on Tue, 7 May 2024 16:07:58 +0000) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:319101 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > Emacs Lisp should not be turned into a statically typed language. > > without losing any useful content, .... > Not really - what would have been lost is the equivalent of ".... and I > see this process happening at the moment.". The frog metaphor was an > economical way of phrasing this. Again, I'm sorry it caused offence. I worry about this too. This is not the first time that Lisp compilation has inspired adding features to declare types of various values that apear inside Lisp functions. For instance, that happened with Maclisp in the 1970s. That pressure is not necessarily overwhelming; it does not necessarily pressure programmers to declare types in all their code. When I wrote Lisp code in the 1970s, I did not declare types. I was not required to do so. But what worries e is that users who want the highest speed will put pressure on all Emacs developers to add type declaratons everywhere to give those users the highest possible speed. -- Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org) Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)