Re: Why shouldn't we have a #if .... #else .... #endif construct in Emacs Lisp?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Eli.

On Sun, Sep 03, 2023 at 14:02:50 +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2023 10:48:50 +0000
> > Cc: stefankangas@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org, mattiase@acm.org
> > From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>

[ .... ]

> > > What is "interpreted compilation" in Emacs?  I'm aware of only two
> > > compilers in Emacs: the byte compiler and the native compiler.  So
> > > when you talk about "the compiler" above, what does that allude to?

> > I mean the defmacro and defun macros, particularly when invoked by C-M-x,
> > etc.  Do we have a generic term for these, regardless of whether they are
> > called interpretatively  or in the context of byte/native compilation?

> "Evaluation"?

That's not quite there, I don't think.  We really want a word which
denotes the setting of a symbol's function cell starting off with a
"source" form.

I'm afraid I forgot to amend the NEWS entry I've just committed.  I'll
think about that a little more.

[ .... ]

> > I have proposed catching this error with a condition-case and in the
> > handler, calling eval again with just one argument.

> > The other party in the email has opined that static-if should not contain
> > this condition-case mechanism, and anybody writing for such an old Emacs
> > should make their own adjustments.

> I tend to agree with "the other party", FWIW.

It's worth a lot.  I've taken the condition-case mechanism out.

I would also be closing the bug, were this a thread on the bug list.  ;-)

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).