Re: Speeding up Emacs load time

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> writes:
>
>> I looked at your .emacs file.  It is rather extensive.  Time
>> consuming parts are usually anytime you (require 'foo) or (load
>> "foo").  Do you really need all of those executed each and every
>> time you start emacs?  Probably not.
>
> OK, this is one way to think. There is another way to think. The
> other way to think is: one second at x does not equal one second
> at y. When you start Emacs, you are not in a rush. You make sure
> you work place is organized. You fetch water, books. You relax you
> shoulders. Whatever. Here, you do have time to wait. However, when
> you are attentively at work, and you have one million thoughts in
> your head at once, you just need to bring up some Emacs
> functionality with a minimal delay. Here, time is much more
> important. It is like the super-focused people playing ice hockey
> or sparring for a boxing fight - for them, 10 seconds is like an
> eternity. When you, as a programmer, reaches that highest peak of
> productivity/focus, you don't want to load any modules, possible
> creating havoc, that (at worst) could take you from what you were
> doing. Super-focus, once lost, cannot easily be recovered. So, my
> piece of advice: be safe, first load everything safe and sound,
> then do your worst to the actual problem you try so solve, with
> minimal interference.

+1 -- I used to do a bunch of autoload/eval-after-load stuff, but later
came to the same conclusion.