Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp

[Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>     But if as a result of those measures, all development moves from GCC to
>>     Clang/LLVM, this will be a pyrrhic victory :-(
>> That's what life is like.  If you fight, you might lose.  If you
>> surrender, you lose for certain.
>
> No.  There can be other measures that don't lead to a loss and don't
> lead to a pyrrhic victory either.
>
> But I think you'd first need to define what you'd consider as a loss.
> AFAICT, you seem to consider "Using GCC in a proprietary product" as
> a loss.  That's only true if the alternative was "making that product
> Free".  If the alternative is "Using Clang in a proprietary product"
> then I think "Using GCC in a proprietary product" is definitely not
> a loss (especially if the GPLv3 works as it should, making it possible
> for the user to replace/fix/improve the GCC part of the proprietary
> product).

Stefan,

As a layman user I would like to understand what this discussion is
about.

Is it about:

1. Making new features available within Emacs?

   - completion
   - refactoring
    
2. Making new features through *a specific* means.

   - llvm only
   - gcc only
    
3. Improving and stregthening the overall ecosystem.  Hyper-linking to
   other Free-software out there.

   - co-opeation with GCC
   - co-opeation with LLVM


If the focus of this thread is (1), it is better to invite CEDET
developers and ask for their inputs.  It bothers me that CEDET is not
really taking off.

As for (2) and (3), I have no observations to make.  It is better to
clarify (for the benefit of spectators) which of the three aspects is
being discussed - (1), (2) or (3).

From my own observations, it seems like (3) is taken up specifically wrt
llvm.

Shouldn't (1) merit equal attention? Implication of (3) is more
strategic and impacts the overally ecosystem but that of (1) is more of
a domestic affair.  Wouldn't it be easy to push for (1) which is less
controversial?

I am open to someone educating me and others.

>         Stefan