Re: Turning Gnus groups into real objects

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> writes:

>> I'd like to turn groups into real objects
>
> I think that can make a fair bit of sense.
>
>> using EIEIO.
>
> But I have to warn you that EIEIO objects are pretty costly, i.e. slow
> to construct (which goes through `make-instance`) and slow to access
> their slots (which goes through `slot-value`).  Depending on your code's
> structure it might not matter too much, or it might render the code
> unacceptably slow.
>
> If creation of those objects and/or access to their slots is expected to
> be frequent enough to matter, you might be better off using
> `cl-defstruct` instead, which is much more lightweight and will likely
> serve you just as well here.

Very good to know! I was originally wavering between eieio objects and
structs, and didn't have a very compelling reason to end up with
objects, except I thought we could "probably use" the extra
functionality at some point. But speed is most definitely a concern, and
totally outweighs any hypothetical future usefulness of objects. I'll go
with structs.

Thanks,
Eric