Re: Correct line/column numbers in byte compiler messages [Was: GNU is looking for Google Summer of Code Projects]

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> things like cconv.el here).  More to the point, users' macros chew up and
> spit out cons cells, and we have no control over them.  So whilst we
> could, with a lot of tedious effort, clean up our own software to
> preserve cons cells (believe me, I've tried), this would fail in users'
> macros.

I think fat-cons cells are cheap to implement (with (hopefully) no
performance impact when not used or weird semantic artifacts like the
fat-symbol approach you tried) and can work 99.9% right in the long term
with an incremental way to get there.

Furthermore it matches the "usual" way to deal with this problem, so
there's very little doubt about whether it can work or not.

> Since then I've worked a fair bit on creating a "double" Emacs core, one
> core being for normal use, the other for byte compiling.  There's a fair
> amount of work still to do on this, but I know how to do it.  The problem
> is that I have been discouraged by the prospect of having this solution
> vetoed too, since it will make Emacs quite a bit bigger.

I'd probably try to veto it, indeed.  It might be a good solution in the
short-term but it'd just slow down our progress in the long term.


        Stefan