Re: makeinfo 5.0 is 34x slower when building Emacs info

[Per Bothner]

On 02/20/2013 03:41 PM, Karl Berry wrote:
> If I, or someone else, had come forward to write something with
> equivalent functionality in C, then we'd have it in C.  No one did and I
> doubt anyone ever will.  So, given the choice between leaving makeinfo
> essentially as it is forever and moving forward with new features that
> people were continually requesting, I chose the latter.

I certainly sympathize with the painful tradeoffs.

I think the best implementation language for something like this
would be C++:  It has modularity, better standard higher-level
libraries than C, performance, and portability.  (I'd be tempted
to suggest Java or some other JVM-based language, for its
performance, libraries, and portability, but I realize there
is some reluctance to have core GNU tools depend on Java.)

This might be a great Google Summer of Code project: Use Patrice's
Perl code as a prototype and design spec, and re-write it in C++.
Possibly too big a project for one Summer, though it might be
doable for someone who is proficient in both Perl and C++.
--
        --Per Bothner
address@hidden   http://per.bothner.com/