Re: Split `simple.el'?

[Stefan Monnier]

> Actually, this might be more fair:
>   M-: (length (x-list-fonts "-*-*-normal-*-*-*-13-*-*-*-*-*-iso10646-1")) RET
> where the "13" part could need a change, if (face-font 'default)
> reports a different pixel-width of the default font on your system.

OK, I just tried it on my office's 2006 mac-mini (Core 2 Duo T7600)
where the above says it has 437 fonts installed (removing the iso10646
constraint brings it up to 614):

    % time src/emacs -Q --geometry +10+10 -f view-hello-file --eval '(progn 
(redisplay t) (sleep-for 2) (kill-emacs))'
    src/emacs -Q --geometry +10+10 -f view-hello-file --eval   0.95s user 0.17s 
system 32% cpu 3.480 total
    % time src/emacs -Q --geometry +10+10 --eval '(progn (redisplay t) 
(sleep-for 2) (kill-emacs))'
    src/emacs -Q --geometry +10+10 --eval   0.46s user 0.05s system 19% cpu 
2.661 total
    %

[ I just used a "sleep-for 2" so I could visually confirm that everything is
  indeed displayed.  ]
So a "normal" start takes ~0.7s and visiting the hello file brings it to
~1.5s hence adding less than a second.

Just for laughs, I tried it on my 2003-vintage Thinkpad X30 (Pentium III
@ 1.2GHz): the time goes from 1.9s to 5.2s, i.e. visiting the hello file
adds a bit more than 3s (and the above x-list-fonts says 462 on this
system).  Definitely not instantaneous but very tolerable.

I expect 500 fonts is not considered large, since I'm not particularly
interested in typography and have installed fairly few fonts above those
that get installed automatically with a "typical" Gnome desktop.

But to justify a delay of more than 10s on a non-ancient system, you'd
need to have at least 10 times as many fonts.  Is that really what's
going on, or is there something else at play?


        Stefan