Re: More reliable byte compilation, take 45

[Steingold <sds@gnu.org>]

> * Lars Ingebrigtsen <ynefv@tahf.bet> [2021-10-04 12:51:19 +0200]:
>
> A defensive solution would be to recompile all libraries that require a
> library, building a dependency tree from require/autoloads/etc, but the
> problem is then that if you edit anything in subr.el, then you have to
> recompile all the .el files, basically.  So it's not practical.

Nevertheless, this is TRT (and your solution is far too complicated, IMO).

Another solution was adopted by CLISP.
(https://clisp.sourceforge.io/impnotes/require.html#lib-files)

Briefly, compilation of `foo.el` should produce 2 files:

1. `foo.elc`, as now - this is the code whose loading is functionally
   equivalent to loading `foo.el`

2. `foo.ell` (lib) - this contains only the compile-time dependencies
   (i.e., compiled `defvar`, `defconst`, `defmacro`, and `defsubst`
   definitions and function declarations)

When the byte compiler sees `(require 'foo)`, it will check that `foo.ell`
has changed since last loaded and will reload it automatically.

-- 
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