Re: Native compilation on as default?

[Colin Baxter]

>>>>> brickviking  <brickviking@gmail.com> writes:

    > On Thu, 26 Oct 2023 at 15:28, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote
    > (in part):

    >> Building Emacs with native compilation is a lot more fragile than
    >> without.  Meanwhile, many users don't need it because Emacs is
    >> fast enough for us without it.
    >> 
    >> Theefore, we should not enable native compilation by default.
    >> 



    > To add to what RMS has stated, I'm on an older machine with not a
    > lot of room left on the primary partition. I understand that's on
    > me, but I wanted to add my notes about my local experience.

    > I compiled Emacs as a test with AOT turned on, and found that it
    > started creating *.eln files. Lots of them. I recompile Emacs on a
    > fairly regular basis, and after one compile/install of Emacs, I
    > noted at least an extra 40Mb after about an hour's running with
    > erc, org-mode and ef-themes (amongst others). On my older 2008-era
    > machine that's starting to really show its age, the extra .eln
    > files were not really worth it for me. I wish I had better news,
    > I've been wanting a sped-up emacs for a little while now. To be
    > fair, I _thought_ I saw a speed increase in what amounts to
    > display code, but I'm not a programmer, mainly a user.

    > Is there a facility to purge out-of-date versions of the .eln
    > files for a version that is installed later, and is that facility
    > easy enough to look for via C-h f? This might make native
    > compilation easier to swallow.

    > Regards, brickviking (Emacs 29.1.90, GTK3, Linux-x86_64)

I would like to second this. I too run old machines - 15 years old , but
still giving good service. I have tried native compilation on one, and
noticed only the presence of a large number of extra files with no
change in performance. I'm not a developer and don't do anything fancy
on emacs.

Po makes a very good point. I compile from git and only one machine has
the necessary library (or libraries?)

Best wishes,

Colin Baxter.