Re: Development Speed

[xenodasein--- via "Emacs development discussions." <emacs-devel@gnu.org>]

Quoting: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2021-12/msg02399.html
From: Stefan Monnier

> > Then there is VLAs, won't using C99 result in the worse optimization?
> Compiler optimizations have very little impact on Emacs-style code
> anyway.

I would still add that to the list of pros, albeit with a small weight.

> According to any of the C standards, Emacs is just one large
> undefined behavior.

Discussion of C stemmed from making the code-base easier to work on,
especially for people who are not seasoned legacy experts.

> We don't care what feature belongs to which standard.  So if you want to
> suggest changes, either send a concrete patch or discuss
> concrete/detailed language features you think we should be using (or
> should stop using)...

In the same vein, my thought at least, it was more about making the code
more standard compliant, predictable, rather than specific features.

> ... with a mention of which versions of which compilers
> support them.

I don't how to reason about this without having the big picture.
And to have that I asked for existence of relevant documentation
in a recent mail.  Reading the whole build system, as with reading
majority of all C code is not it.  It is only something someone
who's spent years on maintaining Emacs can know.  And there are
some things not written at all, for example RMS in this subject
mentioned a significant issue on some old hardware support.

I can't see how this is something to ask over small patches, as
in a patch that says "Make these few lines of code C17 compliant"
wouldn't mean much without a plan.