Re: Comment on Emacs Lisp Introduction

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org>]

Fren Zeee writes:

 > I am not complaining. Its just that I dont have it, and need to find
 > source matching this old executable, which means that it will take
 > some time to search for the particular freeze or tar file if it is
 > still on the web.

Huh.  Why are you so focused on "old"?  If you are an historian, you'd
better enjoy such searches because that's what historians do.  If
you're a programmer, though, old versions are of no particular
interest unless you already know them well enough for forward
differences to have meaning to you.

If you're interested in a particular function, M-x disassemble.

Otherwise, why do you refuse to take the advice to use a modern
version?  The basic architecture hasn't changed since the GNU rewrite.
Functions that are more complex now have become that way for a reason;
those reasons are worth studying.  Many functions are *not* more
complex in themselves than they were then, but have become simpler
because they delegate subtasks that have increased in complexity to
other functions.  It's easier to work backward from modern versions which
are well-developed based on better abstractions (cf. Michael Stokes'
comment about Green's Theorem: "It is trivial.  It is trivial because
the concepts have been well-defined.  That definition took decades."
-- or something like that, I don't have _Calculus on Manifolds_ handy).