Re: Overlays as an AA-tree

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 14:41:19 -0400
> 
> > in any case, I was only talking about the overlay start/end
> > implementation, not about the byte position of markers in general.
> 
> I was talking specifically about keeping byte-positions for overlays.

Like I said, I wouldn't recommend deleting them just yet, only when
the job is done, and it is clear without doubt that the byte positions
are never used.  Keeping them for now is easy on the source level, the
functions for converting between character and byte positions are
readily available, and performance is not really an important issue
for the initial implementation.  OTOH, I've been bitten more then once
by some subtle corner that is not evident and not really documented,
so you don't see it until you bump into it.  It is better to wait
until the job is done than risk implementing a design that is based on
incorrect assumptions.  Especially for someone who does their first
job of such magnitude in Emacs.