Re: emacs evaluating

[Michael Ekstrand]

Evans Winner <thorne@timbral.net> writes:
> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>
>     To compile a function: (byte-compile 'your-function) C-x
>     C-e
>
> I had never thought of this.  I think I really must not
> understand compilation very clearly.  I think I grasp that
> an entire file full of functions will load faster if it is
> compiled first, but what does interactively compiling a
> single function buy me?  Does it exist in a different form
> in the image when you do that?  Does it execute faster?
> (This is not a facetious question, by the way.)  Er, maybe
> it has to do with debugging macros or something...?

It doesn't buy you anything useful that I know of for interactive
experimentation.  Byte compilation is useful for speeding up loading of
large and relatively-immutable packages, but for experimenting using C-x
C-e (evaluate last expression) and the scratch buffer are rather
convenient.  Compiling also makes debugging more difficult, as the
debugger doesn't display overly useful information when it encounters
byte-compiled code.

- Michael

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