Re: [PATCH] Add prettify symbols to python-mode

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> One of the gravest problems I see for the future of Emacs development
> is that we slowly but steadily lose old-timers who know a lot about
> the Emacs internals and have lots of experience hacking them, whereas
> the (welcome) newcomers mostly prefer working on application-level
> code in Lisp.  If this tendency continues, we will soon lose the
> ability to make deep infrastructure changes, i.e. will be unable to
> add new features that need non-trivial changes on the C level.

To quote from the famous "Four Yorkshire Men" sketch
<URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k>: Luxury.

We've just recently had a sort of informal user poll of LilyPond users
on the the LilyPond mailing list (LilyPond is a music typesetter
extensible in Scheme and with a plain-text input language that is
compiled into scores and Midi renditions, so its basic workflow is
non-graphic and somewhat reminiscent of LaTeX or *roff).

About 90% of the user base was in the 50-80 range.  One of the first
well-matured posters wrote "Well, apparently you _can_ teach old dogs
new tricks" but as the thread progressed, the picture looked much more
like you can actually teach rather few new dogs old tricks.

> Moving most Lisp packages out of the core will give a tremendous boost
> to this slippery slope, by even further detaching many contributors
> from the core and segregating the core's ever dwindling bunch.  That
> way lies stagnation and death.

Shrug.  LaTeX had its last major release (LaTeX2e) in 1994.  The basis
of packages and style files built on top of that is ever expanding
(I suspect a similar age distribution to that of LilyPond, though).  It
is not clear that its designated successor, LaTeX3, will ever gain
serious traction once it is finally released as a coherent offering
(rather than a bunch of add-ons).

And make no mistake: the basic _executable_ LaTeX is built around,
namely TeX, is rather unsuitable for general purpose programming.

> Please don't even think about suggesting this, unless you plan to come
> on board and become a very active member of the core team, responsible
> for these aspects specifically.

Projects may behave like stars when the balance between matter and
expansion shifts and eventually collapse under their own weight when
there is not enough of a chain reaction going on any more.

Is our twin star XEmacs a gas giant or a red dwarf these days?  Or on
the way to either?

-- 
David Kastrup