Re: Is Elisp really that slow?

[Emanuel Berg]

tomas wrote:

> The point I wanted to make is that Emacs has
> been very good at keeping itself hackable,
> and this seems a more important metrics than
> raw speed, given Emacs's "mission".

To make Emacs less hackable isn't allowed :)

And Emacs in general is already fast. I do
things much faster than most people who use
modern GUIs. I type faster, I switch between
programs faster, everything is more integrated,
and so on - it is fast!

That doesn't mean I do more productive stuff
for every given computer hour. Sometimes it
works the opposite way, one discovers some
detail, gets an idea, and spend an hour on some
thing which really doesn't matter. But it is
fun and rewarding, so in a way it does. It is
meaningless, but if it's meaningless, one might
as well do it :)

But if we return to (in your words)
"raw speed", I like that as well, so it ain't
to dismiss the discussion.

(BTW did the subject change or am I tripping?!?)

> Hm. I see. Did you file a bug report?

I don't remember the details but it was solved
with the help from the gmane.emacs.w3m
guys, yes.

>> You mean this one:
>> 
>>     (info "(elisp) Writing Emacs Primitives")
>
> Yes. Following this has the downside that you
> end up with a "modified Emacs".

Right, but as you still need to recompile it,
you have no choice anyway, you must get the
source and build it manually, right?

But, one can use the repo Emacs for everyday
purposes, and then have one other to experiment
on.

Perhaps that gets tangled up in the initial
phase but I'm sure it gets worked
out eventually.

> Thus, perhaps "E8 Writing Dynamically-Loaded
> Modules", where your C functions end up in
> a separate library, loaded by Emacs at run
> time, is more interesting.

Aha, so you can do that! Wonderful!

Only... I don't find it?

;; DNC
(info "(emacs) Writing Dynamically-Loaded Modules")
(info "(elisp) Writing Dynamically-Loaded Modules")

Where is it?

And what is this "E8" notation?

> That said, it is always a trade-off: stuff
> written in Elisp is far more hackable, so
> writing extensions in C takes a lot of
> consideration and a good interface design
> (how could people want to use my new
> function?), given the "hackability cost".

Well, I've written enough Elisp by now anyway.
Time to move on :)

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