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

[Drew Adams]

    When I try C-h f self-insert-command it is nearly instantaneous.

I don't notice the time much either when I just call it directly. 0.7
seconds is traditionally considered quite long for an interactive response,
but if you are just doing `C-h f self-insert-command', it might not seem too
long.

describe-function is, however, sometimes called from other (e.g. 3rd-party)
commands, which can add to the response time. If the base function already
takes 0.7 seconds, that doesn't leave much time available for other
computation, in an interactive function.

The point is that those 0.7 seconds (or whatever, on your machine) are
almost all wasted time, not productive time. There is no reason to look up
~5000 bindings that are then ignored. If something useful were being done
for that time, I wouldn't have filed a bug. To me, this is just extra fat
that could easily be trimmed. Is there some reason not to do that?

As always, this is just a bug report. If you (Emacs developers) don't think
it's important enough to fix, that's your call.