From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add prettify symbols to python-mode Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:16:29 +0900 Message-ID: <87613039ci.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <1442777283-27514-1-git-send-email-mvoteiza@udel.edu> <20150921005306.GA29147@holos> <87h9mlwt6l.fsf@Rainer.invalid> <83bnctliay.fsf@gnu.org> <83oagtjemn.fsf@gnu.org> <87oagt84e7.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83mvwdjc5v.fsf@gnu.org> <87k2rh81c5.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <5602FFCF.4050805@cs.ucla.edu> <87bncs9awx.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <56030860.30302@cs.ucla.edu> <87y4fw7r13.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1443057412 14661 80.91.229.3 (24 Sep 2015 01:16:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 01:16:52 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Paul Eggert , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: David Kastrup Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Sep 24 03:16:43 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Zev9P-00011i-8S for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 24 Sep 2015 03:16:43 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51865 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zev9O-0001GU-CS for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 23 Sep 2015 21:16:42 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:34603) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zev9K-0001FS-NQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 23 Sep 2015 21:16:39 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zev9J-0003q6-Rm for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 23 Sep 2015 21:16:38 -0400 Original-Received: from shako.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.161]:39093) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zev9F-0003nR-Qt; Wed, 23 Sep 2015 21:16:34 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by shako.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3BA001C386A; Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:16:30 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 1897011EF83; Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:16:30 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <87y4fw7r13.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> X-Mailer: VM undefined under 21.5 (beta34) "kale" cb65bfaf7110 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 130.158.97.161 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:190319 Archived-At: David Kastrup writes: > Shrug. So you're right and all those people not programming Emacs > in C are wrong. Too bad there's no prize for that. Nobody in their right mind would *want* to program in Emacs in C just because it's there. IME, most people get involved in writing Emacs in C because they have performance needs that can't be addressed by programming Emacs in Lisp, or because their Lisp skills are near zero. Other languages (Python is one whose dev community is known to me) are doing a pretty good job of keeping and acquiring C programming skills, despite having similar C APIs to Emacs's. While David is correct that the C API is off-putting because you really do have to take care of the sensibilities of the Lisp engine when programming, Emacs has done a pretty good job of minimizing that, with macros like CALLN and (much more important, IMO) by getting rid of GCPROs (at least for "proof of concept" on all major platforms for quite a long time, and today there are no supported platforms that need them). So the reason that Emacs seems to have a problem recruiting C-level hackers is elsewhere, IMO.[1] People who want to program Emacs in C for some reason can learn the "syntax" pretty quickly. The semantics of things like FFuncall are another matter, and the requirement that C routines handle all possible Lisp error conditions and all possible Lisp data without crashing is pretty stiff for people coming from the safety of Lisp (or Python!) programming. But those are unavoidable barriers of low-level systems programming. Footnotes: [1] Indeed, it may be non-existent, merely a matter of "grass is greener over there" perception vs. other projects.