From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eli Zaretskii" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: what is the point of point-min? Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 13:30:51 +0200 Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <7458-Fri29Aug2003133050+0300-eliz@elta.co.il> References: <3F4E2B31.5070904@yahoo.com> <84n0dtfsz3.fsf@slowfox.is.informatik.uni-duisburg.de> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1062156811 30432 80.91.224.253 (29 Aug 2003 11:33:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 11:33:31 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Aug 29 13:33:29 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19shVQ-0004Bz-00 for ; Fri, 29 Aug 2003 13:33:28 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.22) id 19shQs-00019b-Cn for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 29 Aug 2003 07:28:46 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.22) id 19sgYE-0005tG-IT for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 29 Aug 2003 06:32:18 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.22) id 19sgXH-0005TK-M1 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 29 Aug 2003 06:31:20 -0400 Original-Received: from [192.114.186.15] (helo=balder.inter.net.il) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.22) id 19sgXA-0005OS-Iz for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 29 Aug 2003 06:31:13 -0400 Original-Received: from zaretski (pns03-202-80.inter.net.il [80.230.202.80]) by balder.inter.net.il (Mirapoint Messaging Server MOS 3.3.3-GR) with ESMTP id CRF85461; Fri, 29 Aug 2003 13:31:09 +0300 (IDT) Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailer: emacs 21.3.50 (via feedmail 8 I) and Blat ver 1.8.9 In-reply-to: (message from Greg Hill on Thu, 28 Aug 2003 14:11:30 -0700) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:12165 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:12165 > Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 14:11:30 -0700 > From: Greg Hill > > Though not by any means a "C guru," I > have done a fair amount of both writing C code from scratch and > maintaining other people's C code; and I have long-since concluded > that looking at the C source for Emacs hoping to figure out what it > is doing is a total waste of my time. I have never made any > significant progress in anything close to a reasonable amount of time. What other programs of comparable size did you have to read and understand? Perhaps Emacs (more than 300K lines of C) is much larger than you are used to? FWIW, the macros are there to make reading code _easier_, not harder. Macros such as CONSP, STRINGP, XCONS, etc., should be almost instantly understandable to anyone who knows a bit of Lisp. By contrast, if you'd see something like if ((enum Lisp_type) foo.u.type == Lisp_Cons) you might have hard time understanding what is going on. (It is true that, if you need to _debug_ some Emacs code, you need to actually read and understand the macros involved. But the need to debug the C code is not the issue in this thread, is it?)