Re: How to quote a list of functions?

[Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>]

"Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com>
writes:

> A lot of emacs configuration can and is performed
> without having the corresponding packages loaded.
> Notably, with the autoload feature, packages are
> loaded only when you first use an autoload command.
> Therefore indeed, all the commands and functions
> that are not autoload, won't be defined when you
> configure them, and therefore you will have to use
> symbols to designate those functions that will be
> defined in the future. Or else you need to load
> them first.

This reminds me of another discussion which is of
attitude and style rather than right or wrong: should
you load everything first thing or should you load
them when you need them?

My take is if the stuff don't slow down the
interactive feel they should be loaded first thing, as
then you are yourself still warming up. Here, you can
afford waiting the extra couple of seconds. One or two
hours later when you are deep into the zone and your
brain is in overdrive then loading stuff can be
perceived as very tedious, especially if loading
doesn't work out alright and some detail needs to be
fixed. It is then much better to realize that first
thing, so it won't interrupt "real" work when you are
deep into it.

The assumption is of course that all the loaded stuff
actually won't slow down the interactive feel.
Actually that is precisely what happens. Compared to
'emacs -Q', my Emacs isn't as fast by far. I once
tried to quantify the difference, but the batch
workloads don't catch the interactive feel
responsiveness and the results weren't telling.
But I can feel it just by using the two instances.
However, the interactive feel is still very fast even
with all the loads, so it is OK, besides it is an open
question which is preferable: "slow" and steady, or
fast and gradually getting "slow" (which will
happen step by step with all the JIT loads). It is
like people always say they get more drunk with liquor
than beer, but I always say it is the change being
a steeper curve, thus more noticable, and actually
they get just as drunk with beer.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573