To Byte Compile or not Byte Compile...that is the question

To Byte Compile or not Byte Compile...that is the question

[Javier Oviedo]

Hello all:

I have a relatively small site-lisp directory, holding about 20 files.

Does Byte compiling those files improve performance in any noticeable way?

Thanks in advance!

Re: To Byte Compile or not Byte Compile...that is the question

[Barry Margolin]

In article <amsls6$3u8$1@tilde.itg.ti.com>,
Javier Oviedo <email_joviedo@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I have a relatively small site-lisp directory, holding about 20 files.
>
>Does Byte compiling those files improve performance in any noticeable way?

The number of files is irrelevant, what matters is how often the functions
they define are used, and how big those functions are.

Byte compiling generally can't hurt, it can only help, so there's little
reason *not* to compile them.  The only excuse I can think of would be that
you might forget to recompile after making a change, so users would
continue to load the old version.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net
Genuity, Woburn, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.

Re: To Byte Compile or not Byte Compile...that is the question

[Klaus Berndl]

On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Barry Margolin wrote:

>  In article <amsls6$3u8$1@tilde.itg.ti.com>,
>  Javier Oviedo <email_joviedo@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >I have a relatively small site-lisp directory, holding about 20 files.
> >
> >Does Byte compiling those files improve performance in any noticeable way?
>  
>  The number of files is irrelevant, what matters is how often the functions
>  they define are used, and how big those functions are.
>  
>  Byte compiling generally can't hurt, it can only help, so there's little
>  reason *not* to compile them.  The only excuse I can think of would be that
>  you might forget to recompile after making a change, so users would
>  continue to load the old version.

This can be avoided by adding a mechanism which automatically byte-compiles an
elisp-file after saving.

Ciao
Klaus

>  

-- 
Klaus Berndl			mailto: klaus.berndl@sdm.de
sd&m AG				http://www.sdm.de
software design & management	
Thomas-Dehler-Str. 27, 81737 München, Germany
Tel +49 89 63812-392, Fax -220

Re: To Byte Compile or not Byte Compile...that is the question

[GI]

Well, if you're really concerned about performance, I'd suggest you "preload" these files (in which case it doesn't matter if you bytecompile or not).

Use temacs to dump out an executable which already has these files preloaded. It saves a lot of time. It's outalined in the "Building emacs" section of the Elisp manual (21.1 +)

GI

PS: Thanks to all who promptly responded to my query about compiling a light emacs. The prompt and helpful emails was much appriciated.




On Wed, Sep 25, 2002 at 11:47:59AM -0400, Javier Oviedo wrote:

> Hello all:
> 
> I have a relatively small site-lisp directory, holding about 20 files.
> 
> Does Byte compiling those files improve performance in any noticeable way?
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Help-gnu-emacs mailing list
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