From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Drifting towards a statically typed Emacs Lisp. [Was: Introducing 'safety' compilation parameter] Date: Tue, 7 May 2024 16:07:58 +0000 Message-ID: References: <86v83pahks.fsf@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="9317"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: acorallo@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, mattias.engdegard@gmail.com, stefankangas@gmail.com To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Tue May 07 18:08:59 2024 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 1s4NNC-00022n-RW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 07 May 2024 18:08:58 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1s4NMS-0002VL-1v; Tue, 07 May 2024 12:08:12 -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 1s4NML-0002PN-GY for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 07 May 2024 12:08:07 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1s4NMH-0002us-TD for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 07 May 2024 12:08:03 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 96449 invoked by uid 3782); 7 May 2024 18:07:59 +0200 Original-Received: from muc.de (pd953a086.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [217.83.160.134]) (using STARTTLS) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Tue, 07 May 2024 18:07:58 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 9048 invoked by uid 1000); 7 May 2024 16:07:58 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <86v83pahks.fsf@gnu.org> X-Submission-Agent: TMDA/1.3.x (Ph3nix) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de Received-SPF: pass client-ip=193.149.48.3; envelope-from=acm@muc.de; helo=mail.muc.de X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action 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:318953 Archived-At: Hello, Eli. On Tue, May 07, 2024 at 16:15:47 +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > Date: Tue, 7 May 2024 12:01:33 +0000 > > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, Eli Zaretskii , > > monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, mattias.engdegard@gmail.com, > > stefankangas@gmail.com > > From: Alan Mackenzie > > I see this change as one more boil-the-frog-slowly step towards turning > > Emacs Lisp into a statically typed language. > Alan, please be kinder, even if you dislike very much suggestions of > others. No offence was intended. > The above could have been easily rephrased as > Emacs Lisp should not be turned into a statically typed language. > without losing any useful content, .... Not really - what would have been lost is the equivalent of ".... and I see this process happening at the moment.". The frog metaphor was an economical way of phrasing this. Again, I'm sorry it caused offence. > .... including your strenuous objection to the change. I see Emacs Lisp steadily drifting towards being statically typed, and I don't think that's a good thing. As far as I'm aware, there has been no general agreement amongst Emacs developers for this (unless it's happened as a side-thread in some thread without having an accurate Subject:). We currently have the prospect of lots of functions being cluttered up with "type" declarations. We already have meaningless (to a Lisp programmer) things like: Inferred type: (function (&optional t t) t) appearing in prominent positions in doc strings. Why? If this is the way Emacs Lisp is to develop, can't we at least have an open discussion about it and a positive decision taken, rather than letting it "just happen"? As is already clear, I see static typing in Emacs Lisp, except, perhaps, on a very limited scale, as a Bad Thing. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).