From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Why shouldn't we have a #if .... #else .... #endif construct in Emacs Lisp? Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2023 20:58:46 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="28174"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: acm@muc.de, ulm@gentoo.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Wed Sep 06 02:59:34 2023 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1qdgtK-00070z-7C for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 06 Sep 2023 02:59:34 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1qdgsd-00070a-Md; Tue, 05 Sep 2023 20:58:51 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1qdgsa-000705-M1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 05 Sep 2023 20:58:48 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1qdgsZ-0008Iv-Qn; Tue, 05 Sep 2023 20:58:47 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=Date:References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From: mime-version; bh=CqY43KnJ7FPYQPB4VZcyjLqssj2bFn5hOC1nA+DwgpE=; b=XA4v1IyGOq2k f0Ay9UQ7VL+2tf8kusWQW5V4zRmpwWqX9bkPJDJ/yglZd5joJSPoOrvRKBi95Uj6BmfwrR0yWiLc7 rewjzrRsrKtlMyUMiKTLY9cG75iyQSJgXXJRKYYMH03YbZzDGjZ6j7xl2PpMNoG97mZLfmlwbCiEK TihYyN6gaLdxt6s8EbA5zYS4NoBhwf15cFOz4f3ZgvpfrlHmluwYlYjRoyJVTB9cLcPL+bUwWVOzm 2DmDzj5ug5BkKKz/DosjAFc/Fzo5IszoObe2PEKvApvheWkrnhiEDFqYl1ANkOCK3nPRjexOS2/88 zTMj6yjMhh69lcCA2GsTzA==; Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1qdgsY-0000qT-JZ; Tue, 05 Sep 2023 20:58:46 -0400 In-Reply-To: (tomas@tuxteam.de) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:310162 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > Besides, a feature test is almost always better than a version test, > because it actually documents what the tester cares about. Indeed it is ofter better, but why are you saying that to me? I did not propose to replace a version test with a feature test, or vice versa. I proposed to handle existing version tests more efficiently without any change in the source code. Others had proposed (or so it appeared) to change the syntax of some version tests, to optimize them, and I suggested we could optimize them better without changing their syntax at all. If people propose to change some version tests to feature tests, I'm not necessarily against that. It might be a good idea. But that seems to be a different question. If we consider that, we need to look for the best way to handle these new feature tests. -- Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org) Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)