4 ms·

For me this is the most exciting part: Complete Emacs-compatible Elisp implementation Thanks to the work of Robin Templeton, Guile's Elisp implementation

by pkd 10y ago

For me this is the most exciting part: Complete Emacs-compatible Elisp implementation Thanks to the work of Robin Templeton, Guile's Elisp implementation is now fully Emacs-compatible, implementing all of Elisp's features and quirks in the same way as the editor we know and love. This means we can finally have a proper GuileEmacs!

ArneBab 10y ago
There’s still work to be done in pre-compiling the elisp in Guile Emacs to reduce the starttime (a lot).
- tmalsburg2 10y ago
  I never understood why people care so much about Emacs' start time. I start emacs maybe once a month and I'd say that anyone who's starting their Emacs so often that start time becomes a nuisance isn't using Emacs the way it's supposed to be used.
  - flukus 10y ago
    A lot of people seem to use it with tmux or similar, where it get's started a lot more often, at least with no server running.
  - lottin 10y ago
    So it's not supposed to be started often? Where does it say that?
    - kwhitefoot 10y ago
      Wrong angle; the point is that Emacs is so useful that you want it open all the time. I have Emacs running always, I use Org-mode for time tracking the tasks in a sprint, I keep my personal diary in Org-mode, I program in Javascript, Python, Ruby. I run the Python interpreter in an Emacs buffer. I use Emacs for file management tasks, Dired is much better than pretty much all file other file managers except for the ability to drag and drop to other windowing applications. And the really serious Emacs users will have a much longer list.
    - ajarmst 10y ago
      In my experience, most people who use emacs as a primary tool run it in server mode. On modern hardware, its footprint is trivial, and that allows you to launch the interface in a fraction of a second. My machines all have an alias for emacs that checks and launches the server (if necessary) before the interface, so I only have to bear a slow start once per reboot.
  - vkazanov 10y ago
    Actually, I just have a systemd unit launching the Emacs server for me. So starting an Emacs frame takes 0.2-0.3 s at best :-) So it's stopped being an issue years ago!
  - Myrmornis 10y ago
    The split here is between people who start it as a console application and those who start it as a GUI app. The former group start and stop it often, with separate instances running in each terminal. The latter don't, using emacs' server mode to get extremely fast "start up" times. The latter way is better, but if you really have to edit files on remote servers a lot then you might have to take the former approach. Yes you could learn to use tramp effectively also.
clappski 10y ago
This is fantastic news. Are there any other major roadblocks for GuileEmacs?
- amirouche 10y ago
  yes! String representation for instance, lake of utf-8 filenames support (at least there is bug) but nothing that can't be fixed.
bcg1 10y ago
Also exciting is the "Fibers" functionality for I/O as well as the updates to the vm instructions that will more naturally facilitate JIT compilation. Especially now that a 2.2 release has been cut, I wouldn't be surprised if JIT compilation makes it upstream soon: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2017-03/msg00010.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2017-03/msg00...
rurban 10y ago
The question is more of the strings are fast enough yet. You could have GuileEmacs for a long time, but they weren't fast enough.
- pkd 10y ago
  No, we couldn't have had GuileEmacs for a long time since the compatibility layer with Elisp wasn't complete - that meant that not all Existing Emacs packages could be used as is with a GuileEmacs. This release specifically addresses that and I am sure that now there will be serious effort to bring about a "stable" GuileEmacs release.
  - rurban 10y ago
    The missing compatibility layer is peanuts compared to the string performance problems underneath. This was my important question, which is not answered in the release announcement. You could force guile on everybody, just as e.g. perl5 did with their Test2 replacement, but not everybody will be happy with a 20% performance hit in the real world, and esp. when telling nobody about it. This would be pure marketing shit.
peatmoss 10y ago
While others in this thread rightly point out that there's still work to be done to make GuileEmacs, I'm interested in another use case that seems like it could potentially be realized in the near-ish term: lib-org-mode. I love org-mode, but wish that some of the features could be ported elsewhere just to make the format more ubiquitous. Or a stand-along org-mode notebook server. Or support in other text editors. Or...
- flukus 10y ago
  Do we want the format to be more ubiquitous? Org-mode is fantastic, but the format itself is .... obviously organic.
  - peatmoss 10y ago
    So that I can use it everywhere and people won't look askance? Definitely! If I compare RMarkdown and org-mode, for example, org is strictly better for academic writing or anywhere else where internal cross-references are needed. Org isn't an astounding format, but it is quietly competent.

by pkd 10y ago

ArneBab 10y ago

There’s still work to be done in pre-compiling the elisp in Guile Emacs to reduce the starttime (a lot).

tmalsburg2 10y ago
I never understood why people care so much about Emacs' start time. I start emacs maybe once a month and I'd say that anyone who's starting their Emacs so often that start time becomes a nuisance isn't using Emacs the way it's supposed to be used.
- flukus 10y ago
  A lot of people seem to use it with tmux or similar, where it get's started a lot more often, at least with no server running.
- lottin 10y ago
  So it's not supposed to be started often? Where does it say that?
  - kwhitefoot 10y ago
    Wrong angle; the point is that Emacs is so useful that you want it open all the time. I have Emacs running always, I use Org-mode for time tracking the tasks in a sprint, I keep my personal diary in Org-mode, I program in Javascript, Python, Ruby. I run the Python interpreter in an Emacs buffer. I use Emacs for file management tasks, Dired is much better than pretty much all file other file managers except for the ability to drag and drop to other windowing applications. And the really serious Emacs users will have a much longer list.
  - ajarmst 10y ago
    In my experience, most people who use emacs as a primary tool run it in server mode. On modern hardware, its footprint is trivial, and that allows you to launch the interface in a fraction of a second. My machines all have an alias for emacs that checks and launches the server (if necessary) before the interface, so I only have to bear a slow start once per reboot.
- vkazanov 10y ago
  Actually, I just have a systemd unit launching the Emacs server for me. So starting an Emacs frame takes 0.2-0.3 s at best :-) So it's stopped being an issue years ago!
- Myrmornis 10y ago
  The split here is between people who start it as a console application and those who start it as a GUI app. The former group start and stop it often, with separate instances running in each terminal. The latter don't, using emacs' server mode to get extremely fast "start up" times. The latter way is better, but if you really have to edit files on remote servers a lot then you might have to take the former approach. Yes you could learn to use tramp effectively also.

clappski 10y ago

This is fantastic news. Are there any other major roadblocks for GuileEmacs?

amirouche 10y ago
yes! String representation for instance, lake of utf-8 filenames support (at least there is bug) but nothing that can't be fixed.

bcg1 10y ago

Also exciting is the "Fibers" functionality for I/O as well as the updates to the vm instructions that will more naturally facilitate JIT compilation. Especially now that a 2.2 release has been cut, I wouldn't be surprised if JIT compilation makes it upstream soon: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2017-03/msg00010.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2017-03/msg00...

rurban 10y ago

The question is more of the strings are fast enough yet. You could have GuileEmacs for a long time, but they weren't fast enough.

pkd 10y ago
No, we couldn't have had GuileEmacs for a long time since the compatibility layer with Elisp wasn't complete - that meant that not all Existing Emacs packages could be used as is with a GuileEmacs. This release specifically addresses that and I am sure that now there will be serious effort to bring about a "stable" GuileEmacs release.
- rurban 10y ago
  The missing compatibility layer is peanuts compared to the string performance problems underneath. This was my important question, which is not answered in the release announcement. You could force guile on everybody, just as e.g. perl5 did with their Test2 replacement, but not everybody will be happy with a 20% performance hit in the real world, and esp. when telling nobody about it. This would be pure marketing shit.

peatmoss 10y ago

While others in this thread rightly point out that there's still work to be done to make GuileEmacs, I'm interested in another use case that seems like it could potentially be realized in the near-ish term: lib-org-mode. I love org-mode, but wish that some of the features could be ported elsewhere just to make the format more ubiquitous. Or a stand-along org-mode notebook server. Or support in other text editors. Or...

flukus 10y ago
Do we want the format to be more ubiquitous? Org-mode is fantastic, but the format itself is .... obviously organic.
- peatmoss 10y ago
  So that I can use it everywhere and people won't look askance? Definitely! If I compare RMarkdown and org-mode, for example, org is strictly better for academic writing or anywhere else where internal cross-references are needed. Org isn't an astounding format, but it is quietly competent.