I believe that the "beginner" here in question is not someone who just started using emacs but a beginner contributor who is already comfortable with emacs and is interested in contributing to the C code but isn't because there isn't enough "Getting started with C tinkering in emacs" documentation.
I like the points that Xue made there with an example of what a "beginner" would go through when trying to understand the display engine.
On Sep 24, 2015 4:35 AM, "David Kastrup" <
address@hidden> wrote:
Xue Fuqiao <address@hidden> writes:
> BTW, I was just trying making an analysis of the this problem, and of
> course my analysis could be wrong. Do you have any idea why newcomers
> mostly prefer working on application-level code in Lisp?
In my opinion that's a feature, not a bug. Elisp is there for a reason.
> (Let's try and stay constructive. If we can find the causes, then we
> have the possibility to improve the current condition.)
We have Elisp exactly in order not to have to address problems by
reverting to C programming. In my opinion it is entirely the wrong idea
to have people start solving problems in C because they prefer it to
Elisp. The main reason to solve problems in C is because there is no
reasonably workable solution to be created in Elisp. If beginners turn
to C first, they will not even know whether there would be a reasonably
workable solution available in Elisp.
Elisp code can be debugged reasonably nicely, manages its memory and
data structures reliably. It's concise, memory-efficient and
expressive.
--
David Kastrup