Re: Speeding up Emacs load time

[Emanuel Berg]

Juanma Barranquero <lekktu@gmail.com> writes:

> Chess *rules* are straightforward. Go rules even more. You can
> learn the rules in five minutes. They lead to non-trivial
> complexity.

You don't say :)

> C++ "rules" are not straightforward. No one can learn its
> "rules" without many hours of careful reading of the standard,
> and even so, it's likely you'll have to go back and re-read many
> fragments.

And this is the case with all PLs, to various degrees. It is not
really a matter of intelligence. Memory, perhaps. I always have to
look up a number of things when switching languages, and even when
it is to a language that I've known very well in the past. On the
other hand, for each time I switch to that language, the process
of recovery gets faster. In this sense, I agree that switching
back to C++ after some absence is probably worse than to many
other PLs.

> That happens with all programming languages, of course. But not
> all programming languages are equally complex. I love Ada, and I
> think it is a much better language than C++

I like Ada a lot! Great for concurrent and/or RT programming. Not
a lot of people know Ada, though. And I know why: it was developed
by the US military :)

> no language flamewars, please

I'm not into that. I think all programming is the same: regardless
of language, platform, and even what it is that you program.

> I'm just stating my opinion but I have no desire to defend it),
> but I wouldn't call Ada "straightforward".

I have much less experience with Ada than with C++, but what I saw
with Ada was straightforward.

> Looking at defect reports (of C++ or Ada) destroys that illusion
> quite fast.

I'm looking to my experience. You can't do the same (look to *my*
experience), so I hold you at a disadvantage here. But I trust my
experience much more than defect reports and errata lists, which,
by the way, I consider natural. No one said designing and
implementing a PL is an easy task.

> And you leave out the infamous C++ template system, so complex
> and bizarre

If that makes it not straightforward, and you want it to be, why
don't you just not use those features?

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573