Re: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Óscar Fuentes <address@hidden>
> Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2014 22:15:37 +0100
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > What happened to the other one?  It is still in the source.
> 
> Smart completion is all about showing the appropriate completions for
> the context where the point is. Once you know the number and type of
> arguments, if you have zero or more than one acceptable overloads, the
> code is malformed. Barred that, there is one and only one correct
> overload, which is the one the compiler will use. A correct smart code
> completion system will show precisely that overload.
> 
> That's what a C++ programmer expects

Not this one.

> >> Eli, are you a C++ programmer? Do you code in C++ on a regular basis?
> >
> > Yes!
> 
> It is obvious then that we have here a complete miscomunication, so I'll
> stop the discussion here.

It is indeed time to stop this, as it doesn't seem to lead anywhere.

All I can say is that it is sad to see veteran Emacs contributors
taking a stance that discourages newcomers from working on important
features, just to make some point they personally see as important.

And to others I say: don't be discouraged by skeptics.  Don't believe
those who make unsubstantiated claims that advancing Emacs in this
area needs many man-years of work by people who must be world-class
experts in C++.  You have several starting points already, they were
mentioned in this thread.  Pick up the one that best suits your needs
and talents, or the one you just happen to like the most, and start
coding.  Heck, even comparing the available solutions (including
clang-based) applied to a non-toy package could be a very good start:
it could lead to useful discussions about the best routes to advance
and how best to attack the existing weaknesses.  At the very least we
will know where we stand, and it will be harder to hand-wave after
that.

Happy hacking!