(describe-function 'self-insert-command) takes too long

[Drew Adams]

emacs -Q

(describe-function 'self-insert-command) takes too long. In highly
interactive settings, where, for example, describe-function is, in
effect, bound to a mouse click or keystroke on a command name, the
time required can make this seem very unresponsive, even
non-interactive.  If a command requires even a little additional
computation, before calling `describe-function', the response time can
easily be unacceptable.

The performance bottleneck would appear to be in
`describe-function-1', at the place where this comment appears:

          ;; FIXME: This list can be very long (f.ex. for self-insert-command).
          ;; If there are many, remove them from KEYS.

So, please FIXME ;-). An acceptable workaround would be to test
explicitly for `self-insert-command', and then just print "many
ordinary text characters" immediately.


In GNU Emacs 22.0.50.1 (i386-msvc-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2006-07-19 on BOS-CTHEWLAP2
X server distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-msvc (12.00)'

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: ENU
  locale-coding-system: cp1252
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Dired by name

Minor modes in effect:
  encoded-kbd-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  unify-8859-on-encoding-mode: t
  utf-translate-cjk-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t

Recent input:
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo>
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> C-h
f s e l f - i n s e r t - c o m m a n d <return> <help-echo>
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <menu-bar> <help-menu>
<report-emacs-bug>

Recent messages:
(C:\Emacs-22-2006-07-19-Fran\bin\emacs.exe -q --no-site-file --debug-init
C:\drews-lisp-20)
Loading encoded-kb...done
For information about the GNU Project and its goals, type C-h C-p.
Loading dired...
Loading regexp-opt...done
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Type C-x 1 to remove help window.
Loading emacsbug...done