Re: CommonLisp namespace system (was Re: adding namespaces to emacs-lisp (better elisp?))

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Sebastian Wiesner <address@hidden> writes:

> 2013/7/26 Drew Adams <address@hidden>:
>>> In Emacs world, we use "package" to mean something different from what
>>> CL "package" means.
>>
>> That's a very recent introduction to the "Emacs world".  Hardly much of
>> a precedent.  "In [the] Emacs world" is a pretty bold way of describing
>> something we just introduced, as if it were essential to what Emacs Lisp
>> has always been.  It is a recent add-on - a welcome one, but hardly core.
>
> As a developer of Emacs Lisp extensions, I consider package.el a core
> addon, no matter how old it is.  I think it's the only more or less
> sane and comfortable way to distribute Emacs Lisp code, and I see it
> being used by many Emacs Lisp developers as primary distribution
> channel for their libraries.
>
> Imho, adding package.el to Emacs has boosted the productivity of the
> Emacs community more than any past attempt to make Emacs Lisp more
> Common Lisp.

Yes, just like quicklisp in CL.  If emacs had been closer to CL,
quicklisp could have run on emacs, and you could have spared the effort
of developping package.el.  Duh.


>> And the question here is not about abandoning package.el etc.  It is
>> about the terminology: "package".  Who heard of Emacs "packages" a few
>> years ago?  Contrast that with who had heard of Common Lisp "packages".
>
> That's a bold saying, too.  I doubt that even Common Lisp itself has
> much relevance to many Emacs users.  I doubt even that it's known to
> many.

A lot of people ask emacs lisp questions on the Common Lisp forums.  Too
bad often even pure programming questions cannot be answered because of
gratuituous differences in emacs.


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.  
You know you've been lisping too long when you see a recent picture of George 
Lucas and think "Wait, I thought John McCarthy was dead!" -- Dalek_Baldwin