Re: `--with-small-ja-dic`

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2024 09:13:19 -0500
> 
> >> Is this option still relevant?
> > I think it is.  It isn't that old, either; see
> >
> >   https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2022-06/msg00122.html
> >
> > which gave its birth (and the following discussion).
> 
> Hmm... OK, so AFAICT the reason to have it as a compile-time option is
> that we found no compelling reason to ever use the reduced dictionary,
> but we were afraid to make the change without offering some way to get
> the old behavior, and the compile-time option was the cheaper way to
> get that.
> 
> Then I suggest we remove that option altogether.

We probably will, at some point.  But not yet: it was only added in
Emacs 29.

> >> And if is, why is it that it is a compile-time choice rather than
> >> a run-time choice?
> > Because it's simpler, and also avoids making the build longer and the
> > tarball larger.
> > Why are you bothered by this, may I ask?
> 
> It just seems very odd: when I read the (long) list of `configure`
> options, this one really stands out as being "unrelated" to the build.
> 
> If the option were `--with-big-ja-dic` I could imagine that we
> considered the generated file to be too large for a normal build, but
> the other way around doesn't make sense given all the other stuff we
> include that any specific user will never use.

I hope it does make sense now that you have read the above thread.