Re: Adding Flycheck to NonGNU ELPA

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 23/02/2024 18:20, Spencer Baugh wrote:

>  From looking at ruby-flymake--helper, maybe it would be best to have a
> new helper for working with processes.  It looks like
> ruby-flymake--helper just wants to:
>
> 1. Send the current buffer text to a process.
> 2. When the process exits cleanly, call a callback with all the
> process's output.
>
> It seems like we could add a helper that supports that.  Then
> ruby-flymake--helper would disappear in favor of some
> process-run-and-call function.

Some kind of helper that covers the existing variations is indeed what I 
was thinking of. Though maybe (additionally) a macro version with a 
terse syntax would appeal to some, too.

> Or... IMO, even better than a helper would be using Elisp threads for
> this.  Then there's no need for any callback stuff.  Really, threads are
> a natural fit for flymake, since flymake already provides a UI which can
> display data computed asynchronously by threads, and that's IMO the
> hardest part of using threads.

I'm not sure about Lisp threads for this particular purpose because they 
carry their own complexity (flakier error handling, for example), and 
the asynchrony requirement is solved by the current callback-based 
interface. I think threads can bring more value where you would be able 
to write code in a sequential fashion, while having it executed 
asynchronously (unrelatedly, one of the subjects you touched on in 
bug#69188). But maybe I'm wrong, you're welcome to show otherwise, maybe 
with a code example.