From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Friedrich Dominicus Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Differences between Elisp and Lisp Date: 29 Apr 2003 12:22:58 +0200 Organization: Q Software Solutions GmbH Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+gnu-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <87znm98uwt.fsf@fbigm.here> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1051611750 27894 80.91.224.249 (29 Apr 2003 10:22:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 10:22:30 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+gnu-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Apr 29 12:22:29 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19ASFo-0007Fi-00 for ; Tue, 29 Apr 2003 12:22:28 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 19ASDy-0006dE-06 for gnu-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 29 Apr 2003 06:20:34 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed.news.nacamar.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsmm00.sul.t-online.com!t-online.de!news.t-online.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 46 Original-X-Trace: news.t-online.com 1051611405 00 8405 ZYQ5EFbTSaYyd- 030429 10:16:45 Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@t-online.com X-ID: S1f3z4ZAQeUibIodH0AbVKMwdHMrdrxYijrJWKt1Kr9oLhi+zCz-c4 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.4 (Native Windows TTY Support) Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:112493 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+gnu-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:8990 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:8990 "Daniel R. Anderson" writes: > On emacswiki.org there is a "wish list". Quite a few people want emacs > to be based on another version of LISP. Out of curiosity, what is it > that makes elisp inherently bad, or why would people want it to be > changed? Uh oh, Flamewar alert ;-) Oh no, I can' resist. Well saying elisp is inherently bad is way too strong, anyway elisp was and partly is weak in the following areas. - Datastructures (yes I know defstruct does exist and as eieio does exist too.). If you look a bit through Emacs Lisp code than you'll see that nearly every package goes through Lists.... - missing package system (everyone who write a package prefix his/her stuff with some prefix..., what makes up for some sort of package) - dynamically scoped (no "real closures", other may see this as an advantage. - without the cl-package Emacs Lisp would really be uncomplete ... Now what would we gain with something else? Depenps on what we choose, IMHO nothing is better for extensions than some Lisp Dialect, having the ability to write macros seems to be very good do have for an Editor. Now what would I prefer? I would prefer having based Emacs on Common Lisp. I tend to think that structuring the code in-the-large on CLOS would make for an exceptional framework for any kine of text processing, well it would be a very large framework that's for sure, therefor learning it would be not an easy task but it would be way easier than having what we have a the moment. I tend to think that with CLOS code duplication would be much lowered. Anyway let's see the fact. I bet the code base from Emacs Lisp is one of the larget around and Emacs does help much to find one's way through it's API. There's hardly anything which Emacs can't do, and all is available for your own tools too. Thousans of man years of development has been carried out with Emacs Lisp, if something new comes along which has to do with handling text, sooner than latter Emacs will capable of doing it too. Emacs is really a miracle.... Regards Friedrich