Re: Lexical binding -- do we really need it?

[Per Abrahamsen]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

> I don't think it is worth while working on optimization in the Emacs
> Lisp compiler.  It could be an unlimited time sink, drawing effort
> away from features that benefit the user into something users will
> hardly notice.

I believe Gnus users will notice, Gnus is often CPU bound (although
not necessarily by the compiler) and has a reputation for being slow.

Also, I had to give one of the most complex options
(nnmail-split-fancy) the customize type "sexp", because the structured
type resulted in an unusable slow UI.  And that is bound by the Lisp
compiler.

I think speed is important, not as much for the things we do today,
but for the things we don't do because the byte code is too slow.