Re: Is Elisp really that slow?

[Óscar Fuentes]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> Of course, there's the question of how what this language should look
> like, but I think more importantly, there's the question of how its
> compiler is used:
> - can any random Emacs user download your elisp-ish-c code and run it
>   with the same ease as if it were written in Elisp?

See below.

> - I.e. does it require re-starting Emacs?

I hope not.

>   Does it require installing a C compiler or some such external tool?

No. Just LLVM as a library.

>   Does it work on all the architectures supported by Emacs?

It would work on all architectures supported by LLVM.

> - can incorrect elisp-ish-c code cause your Emacs to seg-fault?

For code that the user can download or write himself, this is
undesirable and therefore automatic checks must be added. For code
written by the Emacs developers and meant to compete with C, explicit
checks make sense.

One thing that cannot be left out from this C-ish Elisp is garbage
collection, else the language would have a very different runtime model.
This is probably the most difficult part because GC is something that
you must add on top of LLVM.