Re: Making --with-wide-int the default

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: address@hidden
> From: Paul Eggert <address@hidden>
> Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 01:03:15 -0700
> 
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > To make it the default for all 32-bit builds, we should make sure it
> > works well on the other supported platforms.  Perhaps Paul could tell
> > which platforms he found this to work on, and then we could decide.
> 
> --with-wide-int is not the default because Stefan was worried about its 
> performance implications on older, slower 32-bit machines (such as Stefan's 
> and/or RMS's laptops at the time, if I recall correctly). There shouldn't be 
> any 
> correctness problem with it; it's a performance issue.
> 
> I typically use 64-bit platforms nowadays, where the issue is moot. When I do 
> use 32-bit platforms, I normally configure --with-wide-int. There is roughly 
> a 
> 30% CPU hit and maybe a 60% hit on virtual memory, but it's worth it to me (I 
> normally don't notice the difference).

Thanks, that about summarizes what I see here as well.

Would you say it's safe to make this the default for Emacs 25?

(If Richard reports annoying slowdown, we could suggest him to disable
that at configure time.  Or maybe there should be a configure-time
test for CPU speed?)