Re: lexical mumblings

[Miles Bader]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:
>       [1] Adding support to the byte-code interpreter, so that it's possible
>         to do efficient lexical binding.  ...
> 
> You are right, I thought you were talking about 1 and 2 together.

My original post did discuss both [1] and [2], so I can see why you
thought this.

> I see no reason to object to #1.  But what good would it do if Lisp
> programs don't use it?  When would they use it?

There are several possible ways -- for instance, a special `llet' form,
if you just want to use lexical binding for particular cases [maybe in a
speed critical inner loop], or perhaps putting `(use-lexical-binding)'
at the top-level of an elisp source file, which would cause
byte-compiler to lexically bind local variables instead of using the
normal dynamic binding.

Of course, any variable declared using `defvar' would always be
dynamically bound, no matter what (or at least, that's how I envision
things working, based on the way common-lisp works).

>     You are not maintaining emacs alone; there are others helping you
>     (including me).
> 
> Nobody else wanted to take overall responsibility,
> which means it falls on me.

Well, it's never easy being the king ... but it's a lot easier if you
have a big army!

-Miles
-- 
Next to fried food, the South has suffered most from oratory.
                        -- Walter Hines Page