From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: What's missing in ELisp that makes people want to use cl-lib? Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2023 19:28:58 +0100 Message-ID: <87bkbueuqd.fsf@dataswamp.org> References: <12da6bcb-1818-7fbe-12af-8d4607724332@gutov.dev> <87il6bt4z0.fsf@yahoo.com> <8734xetjkk.fsf@yahoo.com> <87cywhsrcf.fsf@yahoo.com> <87cywgx1z0.fsf@web.de> <83wmuowwp3.fsf@gnu.org> <83leb3v5al.fsf@gnu.org> <87msvh6mds.fsf@sebasmonia.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="20340"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Cancel-Lock: sha1:GVbpyzq9yRKcYrbmHV/3LDtwqtY= Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Wed Nov 15 20:35:18 2023 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1r3LfS-0004zZ-HW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2023 20:35:18 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1r3Lek-0000Ph-IX; Wed, 15 Nov 2023 14:34:35 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1r3KdZ-0007wu-PX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2023 13:29:17 -0500 Original-Received: from ciao.gmane.io ([116.202.254.214]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1r3KdX-00025T-Sb for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2023 13:29:17 -0500 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.io with local (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1r3KdT-0006QA-TF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2023 19:29:12 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Mail-Followup-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Mail-Copies-To: never Received-SPF: pass client-ip=116.202.254.214; envelope-from=ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; helo=ciao.gmane.io X-Spam_score_int: -16 X-Spam_score: -1.7 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.7 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS=0.249, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE=-0.01 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-Mailman-Approved-At: Wed, 15 Nov 2023 14:34:27 -0500 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:312770 Archived-At: Sebastián Monía wrote: > 1. This kind of thread is more "scary" to potential Emacs > contributors than any degree of complexity in cl-lib. > I can confirm that. Very true! It is alienating to newcomers but also to experienced people who have solved problem with cl-lib in Emacs and saw no problem with that, on the contrary, they used what they thought was the best way to do it. > 2. There's a lot of vague arguments for and against the > library that, as an semi-outsider, read more like > stylistic preference. Sometimes familiarity, or lack of > it. Few objective reasons for/against. Again, true. In particular, what is lacking is whatever the alternative would be. If cl-lib has increased the general complexity, fine, maybe that is a problem to some. But surely it is totally impractical to kick it out and for the vast majority of the places where it is used we can't make the case not using it will improve the quality of that code on a case-by-case basis. > 3. Anyone interested in writing code for Emacs has to make > the leap to a Lisp (elisp, in this case) which is already > quite alien to a large population. For non-programmers, > the problem is indistinguishable from learning any other > language. Even for most people familiar with software > development, cl-lib is the least of their difficulties. Very true, there is no huge leap from Elisp not including cl-lib to Elisp including cl-lib. If used well, cl-lib will on the contrary reduce the complexity and make the code cleaner. And in very complicated cases, as we have seen with some examples of `cl-loop', it is not clear in any way that re-writing that in any other style would reduce complexity. On the contrary `cl-loop' can be seen as a handy frame where all that complexity, when encountered, is neatly organized and accessible. At the very least, the people who used cl-lib and cl-loop and every thing else cl- that they used, they didn't agree that use was detrimental to anything, style or functionality. And they solved their problems! In general, we should trust them, and in particular, we should absolutely not alienate them or anyone else for no reason other than style issues that other people have on their contributions to Emacs. We shipped the library, people used it, that's the situation. -- underground experts united https://dataswamp.org/~incal