From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: RE: CL package serious deficiencies Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 13:53:22 -0800 Message-ID: References: <33271707.post@talk.nabble.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1328565218 8460 80.91.229.3 (6 Feb 2012 21:53:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 21:53:38 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "'Stefan Monnier'" , "'egnarts-ms'" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Feb 06 22:53:36 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RuWVC-0002aw-T4 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:53:35 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51617 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RuWVC-00009Q-1M for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:53:34 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:55570) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RuWV8-00008N-IE for Emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:53:31 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RuWV7-0005Ht-9S for Emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:53:30 -0500 Original-Received: from acsinet15.oracle.com ([141.146.126.227]:28863) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RuWV7-0005Hm-0N for Emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:53:29 -0500 Original-Received: from acsinet22.oracle.com (acsinet22.oracle.com [141.146.126.238]) by acsinet15.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.4/Switch-3.4.4) with ESMTP id q16LrPxf028544 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Mon, 6 Feb 2012 21:53:26 GMT Original-Received: from acsmt358.oracle.com (acsmt358.oracle.com [141.146.40.158]) by acsinet22.oracle.com (8.14.4+Sun/8.14.4) with ESMTP id q16LrP40001244 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Mon, 6 Feb 2012 21:53:25 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt107.oracle.com (abhmt107.oracle.com [141.146.116.59]) by acsmt358.oracle.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id q16LrOGa023109; Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:53:24 -0600 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/130.35.178.194) by default (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:53:24 -0800 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 In-Reply-To: Thread-Index: AczlE5aPg/2CxvNbT/e+Yn1EEzdOsQAA1eXw X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 X-Source-IP: acsinet22.oracle.com [141.146.126.238] X-Auth-Type: Internal IP X-CT-RefId: str=0001.0A090209.4F304BD6.0059,ss=1,re=0.000,fgs=0 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 1) X-Received-From: 141.146.126.227 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:148288 Archived-At: > Elisp is not Common-Lisp. CL does try to provide some CL-style > functionality, but indeed it has some rough edges in this > regard. It is much better to look at it as a handy toolbox, > whose design was inspired by the experience of Common-Lisp, > than to look at it as a "Common-Lisp compatibility layer". I have to agree that that is the case. And that is the right way to look at things, in the current state. > The points you raise sound like bugs indeed. We welcome > patches to fix them, but I personally won't spend much time > tracking those bugs down, because my experience with this > part of CL is that it's not always easy to dig into it > (it's *very* lightly commented for one, and parts of it > are fundamentally broken). Some comments. 1. I don't blame you or others for not wanting to spend much time on such things. Everyone who contributes is a volunteer. 2. There are lots of people who use cl.el. There are even lots of people who systematically write libraries that depend on cl.el functions at runtime (not just macros at compile time). Unfortunately. My impression is that this might be increasingly the case, and that perhaps younger or newer Emacs users are more likely to do so. 3. I think that it would be good to make fixing more of such bugs and lacunae a higher Emacs Dev priority. Such development does not implement a sexy new feature, but it is worthwhile, I think. 4. And yes, it's non-trivial work to get things right. If you, Stefan, find the existing code too lightly commented and less than clear, then it should be evident that others will too. For progress to be made here there would, IMO, need to be some commitment from people like you. But maybe I'm wrong and all it will take is some new, bright volunteer lurking on the list and waiting for an opportunity to make a difference. ;-) 5. IMO it makes sense to proceed gradually, and to start by including more of the simpler things that do work well, even if in a limited way, into regular Emacs Lisp. 6. We've been through this (#5) before. Candidate functions have been nominated and discussed. Some people have longer wishlists of functions than others. But little to nothing comes of it. Dommage, IMO. Just one opinion. And I probably will not follow up with more discussion, which is likely to go nowhere again.