Re: [Emacs-diffs] master b7f83ad: Prefer memset to repeatedly assigning Qnil

[Stefan Monnier]

> If we can't rely on Qnil being 0, what's the point of making Qnil == 0
> in the first place?

Allow the compiler to make some optimizations.

> If we can rely on Qnil being 0, we can put Lisp variables in BSS, use
> memset, and perform other nice optimizations.

Right.  But Lisp_Object representation has changed several times over
the years (tags in MSB, then tags in LSB, unions, structs, ...) and
I wouldn't be surprised if tens years from now it'll be obvious that "we
should drop the Qnil==0 thingy so we can perform <foo> optimization".

It's OK to make a few targeted optimizations based on Qnil==0, but it
should stay sufficiently confined that it we can sufficiently easily
enumerate the places where we make such assumptions and change them.


        Stefan