Re: Emacs & Lisp question

[Richard Riley <rileyrgdev@gmail.com>]

Ben Badgley <mortecanine@peoplepc.com> writes:

> Been using Google all day to no avail. I think it is pretty straight 
> forward question.
>
> Can you use compressed Lisp code? Will it evaluate, compile and evaluate?
>
> The reason I ask is due to looking at the Emacs directory. The Lisp code 
> directory sure does eat up a lot of space. So, it came to mind, "why not 
> compress each of those buggers and let the interpreter use them from the 
> archives?"
>
> Will Emacs allow this? Further is it even doable beyond Emacs?
>
> This may not be exactly the best place for me to ask, understood. I am 
> trying to keep it related to Emacs on a general usage level. If we can 
> use compressed libraries, wouldn't it be worth knowing? ;-)
>

Emacs can use gzipped el files. e.g text-mode.el.gz.

However, at about 80 euro for a terabyte of hard drive, I wonder if its
a good investment of anyone times and effort at this stage when one
considers the overhead in start up time! A trade off only you can call.