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Re: emacs evaluating
From: |
Michael Ekstrand |
Subject: |
Re: emacs evaluating |
Date: |
Sat, 07 Feb 2009 16:33:11 -0600 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.90 (gnu/linux) |
Evans Winner <thorne@timbral.net> writes:
> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>
> To compile a function: (byte-compile 'your-function) C-x
> C-e
>
> I had never thought of this. I think I really must not
> understand compilation very clearly. I think I grasp that
> an entire file full of functions will load faster if it is
> compiled first, but what does interactively compiling a
> single function buy me? Does it exist in a different form
> in the image when you do that? Does it execute faster?
> (This is not a facetious question, by the way.) Er, maybe
> it has to do with debugging macros or something...?
It doesn't buy you anything useful that I know of for interactive
experimentation. Byte compilation is useful for speeding up loading of
large and relatively-immutable packages, but for experimenting using C-x
C-e (evaluate last expression) and the scratch buffer are rather
convenient. Compiling also makes debugging more difficult, as the
debugger doesn't display overly useful information when it encounters
byte-compiled code.
- Michael
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