Re: 15 seconds to fontify index

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Cc: Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
> Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:33:42 +0200
> 
> > IMHO, just waiting for machines to become faster will consume much
> > less energy (freeing our scarce resources for more important work),
> > with the same net result.
> 
> At the same time machines become faster, the documents get larger.

Not at the same pace, at least not as far as Info indices are
concerned.  For example, the version of ELisp reference manual
released with the last v21.x Emacs, 5 years ago, had 3214 index
entries, while the current CVS has 4440.  The Emacs user manual had
3525 index entries in v21.4, while now we have 4550.  Compare that
with the CPU speed increase during those 5 years.

> Computers have become obscenely more powerful than 40 years ago, yet
> their speed still determines the work one can get done.

Only because most of the time a typical desktop computer is busy
moving pixels from here to there.  That is why computers look to us as
if they didn't gain any power at all.