Re: Custom vtable.el sorters

[Adam Porter]

On 10/4/24 19:44, Kristoffer Balintona wrote:

> I see. I could definitely try my hand at implementing such a feature.
> However, I'm very new to the Emacs development process and have never
> contributed to Emacs before. (I am aware of the FSF copyright assignment
> process though.) Would I just attach a patch to an email sent to
> emacs-devel@gnu.org and wait for some input?

That's one way to do it, yes.  You could also submit it as a bug report 
with the patch attached, which helps ensure that it doesn't get lost. 
If you do, feel free to cc me; I'm not the vtable.el maintainer, but I 
have worked on it recently and don't mind helping out where I can.

> Although I haven't tried yet, another concern of mine is that whatever
> implementation I think up wouldn't be that great--I can't help but feel
> like someone more qualified should do the job of writing the code for
> what could be a widely used feature in the future.

Many people who've contributed to Emacs don't feel like they are expert 
programmers, and most aren't, anyway.  And remember that some of the 
first Emacs users and programmers also weren't programmers by 
profession.  One of the best ways to learn is by writing code and 
getting feedback from experienced developers like the Emacs maintainers 
(whom I can't speak for, but I can try to imitate them a little).

> I apologize if these questions are naive. I thought it'd be better to
> ask anyway.

Not at all.  Contributions and questions from motivated users are always 
welcome.  We all start somewhere--and with Emacs, once you get started, 
it can be hard to stop!  :)

--Adam