Re: C and Emacs Lisp code parts

[Davis Herring]

> BTW think at the fate of bazaar. Here Python was at stake and for a time
> it growed quickly. Assume the easiness of Python as a factor of success.
> But finally a C-based tool won the race, while bazaar went into bigger
> and bigger issues. Why? :-)

This has officially gotten ridiculous beyond the reach of emoticons.

$ cd /usr/libexec/git-core
$ file * | grep text
git-add--interactive:    a /usr/bin/perl -w script text executable
git-am:                  POSIX shell script text executable
git-bisect:              POSIX shell script text executable
git-difftool:            a /usr/bin/perl script text executable
git-difftool--helper:    POSIX shell script text executable
git-filter-branch:       POSIX shell script text executable
git-instaweb:            POSIX shell script text executable
git-lost-found:          POSIX shell script text executable
git-merge-octopus:       POSIX shell script text executable
git-merge-one-file:      POSIX shell script text executable
git-merge-resolve:       POSIX shell script text executable
git-mergetool:           POSIX shell script text executable
git-mergetool--lib:      POSIX shell script text executable
git-parse-remote:        POSIX shell script text executable
git-pull:                POSIX shell script text executable
git-quiltimport:         POSIX shell script text executable
git-rebase:              POSIX shell script text executable
git-rebase--interactive: POSIX shell script text executable
git-relink:              a /usr/bin/perl script text executable
git-repack:              POSIX shell script text executable
git-request-pull:        POSIX shell script text executable
git-sh-setup:            POSIX shell script text executable
git-stash:               POSIX shell script text executable
git-submodule:           POSIX shell script text executable
git-web--browse:         POSIX shell script text executable

Git, like init (and /etc/init.d), Emacs, NumPy, and basically every 
other non-trivial software system in existence, consists of a mix of 
compiled and interpreted code according to the strengths and weaknesses 
of each.  Everyone knows this.

Everyone also knows that no practical benefit is to be had from the 
(substantial!) effort of rewriting all the high-level code in C (or why 
not hand-tuned assembler?) because of 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law>.  The numbers that govern 
your life in that law are the ones that, erm, everyone has told you need 
to be measured in order to make any kind of useful decisions.

Git is widely celebrated for its efficiency.  Much of that comes from 
the design of its (on-disk) data structures; minimizing the cost of disk 
access is rather more important than the language that is used to search 
them.

Davis

--
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shipping.