Re: Emacs learning curve

[joakim]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

> address@hidden writes:
>
>> David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> "Eric M. Ludlam" <address@hidden> writes:
>>>
>>>> One of the things I was most surprised by was that when CEDET was
>>>> integrated into Emacs, only 2 people tried it and reported anything
>>>> from this list.  I fixed those things too.  Now this list is posting
>>>> things that effectively pretend CEDET doesn't exist.  What's up with
>>>> that?
>>>
>>> For the effects discussed in this thread, it does not exist.  It does
>>> much less (if at all) to make two existing separate modes more similar
>>> than, say, cc-mode does.
>>>
>>> It may be that this situation will be different in 10 years from now,
>>> but I don't see the way to there.  Cedet makes it somewhat easier, as
>>> far as I can discern, to help a programmer with creating his own
>>> completely idiosyncratic mode with complex functionality.
>>>
>>> It helps to manage complexity for the mode programmer, not unify
>>> behavior for the user.
>>>
>>> If I am wrong, so much the better, but unless everybody else _knows_ I
>>> am wrong, the consequences will be about the same.
>>
>> You are wrong, but you are also right that there seems to be a lack of
>> understanding amongst mode coders that cedet not only provides a
>> common infrastructure, but also a common user interface for many
>> things. I think it would help if cedet was more used within emacs, and
>> also if more cedet clients were incorporated in Emacs, such as ECB.
>
> Well, cedet has no discernible documentation.  It has no info file.
> semantics has an info file.  It talks about bovine and wisent parser
> generators.  It mentions their source files.  They don't exist.  Wisent
> files presumably have an extension of .wy.  The semantics documentation
> claims that there is a mode for creating them.  Opening a file with .wy
> extension puts it in fundamental mode.  There are no interactive
> commands autoloaded starting with wisent- or bovin that would have
> anything to do with writing language support using
> Cedet/semantics/whatever.
>
> If there is any usable infrastructure or documentation for creating a
> mode/grammar with the current Emacs distribution, it is rather well
> hidden.
>
> In the current state of Cedet as delivered with Emacs, it is not usable
> for creating new parsers for a language of your choice.  You can use the
> existing parsers, but you'll have a hard time finding out what they do,
> and even just what languages are supported.

Thanks. Maybe I can help Eric with documentation then. 

> Completely useless as a tool for a developer interested in developing
> support for a language not already supported.

I did help write support for a language not already supported, so I find
this statement a bit harsh.

-- 
Joakim Verona