From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: performance isn't a concern in ... Emacs Lisp's future Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:08:41 +0200 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: <87d2aut686.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <87wq97i78i.fsf@earlgrey.lan> <87sijqxzr2.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <87egvaxshd.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <83k3522ulo.fsf@gnu.org> <871traxoy7.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <8761gmyvg5.fsf_-_@ferrier.me.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1410980971 30150 80.91.229.3 (17 Sep 2014 19:09:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:09:31 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Sep 17 21:09:24 2014 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 1XUKbT-0000v2-4G for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:09:23 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:46863 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUKbS-0004Bi-Gs for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:09:22 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:50070) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUKbB-0004B9-8e for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:09:10 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUKb5-0000y0-R7 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:09:05 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:34633) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUKb5-0000xN-Kq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:08:59 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XUKaz-0000kl-N3 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:08:53 +0200 Original-Received: from x2f502b3.dyn.telefonica.de ([2.245.2.179]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:08:53 +0200 Original-Received: from dak by x2f502b3.dyn.telefonica.de with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:08:53 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 56 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: x2f502b3.dyn.telefonica.de X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6, xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN; i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:Q8Dl5nAtuq9q+dMNRrLdEXpsbhI= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 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:174458 Archived-At: Nic Ferrier writes: > phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk (Phillip Lord) writes: > >> What can I say? I don't sit around waiting for emacs to do stuff >> nowadays when I am using it. And I've just implemented a package that >> copies, then searches and replaces an entire buffer on every keypress. >> And I don't notice it running for moderate size files. >> >> The manual talks about the performance danger of overlay, but I've just >> put an overlay an every word in a 300 line buffer, and I can't notice >> that either. >> >> Even though Emacs now takes considerably more than Eight Megabytes, it >> is not Constantly Swapping. CPU has grown quicker than Emacs demands. > > Another reason is we learned how to write better code. In the old days > we'd all be hacking 10k line C++ files. In the old days there was no C++. There still isn't in the Emacs codebase, and src/xdisp.c has 30k lines. > But programmers with that level of maturity are still around. Many of > them using Eclipse. Shrug. I've written cross compiler and assembler for FORTH systems fitting into a few kilobytes and not even organized into files but rather 1kB blocks of source code for compiling industrial applications. I had to write bootstrap loader and BIOS for my first self-soldered system before being able to boot the first time. I can probably still rattle off the execution cycles for most Z80 assembly language commands and (from a later job) most of those for Pentium I (though I'm fuzzy these days what the second integer pipeline was not getting used for). I am sure you'll find better reasons to call me immature than my too long computing history purportedly rendering me unable to write good code. By the way: one of the most lucid pieces of code I had the pleasure to come across was a Reversi program written in Z80 assembly language for which only had the binaries and needed to disassemble it in order to adapt it to a different OS and storage location. It was a textbook variant of Alpha-Beta pruning with scoring tables mapped excellently to the processor architecture, using the index registers very consistently, and with the code structured into clearly recognizable tasks. No, we haven't really "learned how to write better code", just like electronic instruments have not taught us how to write better music. Having a larger variety of wrappings for content does not really change what substance actually lies at the core. -- David Kastrup