Re: Compilation to native

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Kenichi Handa <handa@m17n.org> writes:

> In article <E1B5q0C-00039m-FD@fencepost.gnu.org>, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> >     I thought about a different approach: predefined CCL programs
> >     could be statically converted into C code and compiled by a C
> >     compiler into Emacs core.
> 
> > It is worth a try.  On the other hand, I have to wonder
> > if the CCL interpreter could be faster.
> 
> I think there's not much room of improvement in the CCL
> interpreter (i.e. the function ccl_driver).
> 
> In addtion, in emacs-unicode, CCL is, by default, used only
> for Ethiopic font encoding, and it can easily be changed not
> to use CCL.
> 
> So, I think it's not that worth working on CCL interpreter.

If we have a development plan to switch to emacs-unicode soon.  We
really need to get a grip about what should be in the next feature
release.

If the unicode and bidi branches are considerable usable, what are we
waiting for?

We are in the situation that currently for many purposes one has to
tell people "try using CVS".  People get more and more to rely on it
for daily work.  This situation is unhealthy.  If things like
emacs-unicode and emacs-bidi are expected to cause longer-lasting
trouble, then we should crank out something like a full-featured 21.5
or so just before merging them.  If the merge phase leads to longer
problems, we at least have a somewhat stable release to refer people
to while we are sorting the problems out.

If, on the other hand, users and developers of the unicode and bidi
branches are confident enough that under _normal_ use (i.e., if one
does not use bidi texts) stability should not be affected much, then
I'd say "what the heck, give it to us".  Maintaining separate branches
for longer always leads to merging headaches.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum