Re: Perl embedding: trial balloon
* 1999-04-17 Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic(a)srce.hr> list.xemacs
* Message-Id: <87lnfr10gj.fsf(a)pc-hrvoje.srce.hr>
|
| John Tobey <jtobey(a)channel1.com> writes:
|
| > I would like you folks' comments on the possibility of porting
| > Perlmacs (an embedding of Perl in GNU Emacs) to XEmacs.
|
| I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, adding the feature
| for the users who want it has always been a policy in XEmacs, as
| opposed to FSF Emacs.
|
| But on the other hand, I don't really see a use for Perlmacs in the
| XEmacs core. XEmacs is based on Lisp, and it won't go away. Teaching
| people to utilize the Lisp interpreter they have is a worthy goal
| which I feel is threatened by allowing Perl to be used instead.
|
| Perl is popular. Perl is hype. People who have never heard of Emacs
| Lisp but know Perl, will want to use the new capabilities, and then
| we'll be stuck with supporting Perl. I don't like that prospect.
|
| I'll quit rambling and continue with the technical part.
As a both Lisp and Perl programmer, I would cheerish the choice of
extension language, whether it were even python. I don't like the FSF's
attitude to stick lisp or guile on everyone's throat just because they
believe lisp is "academic" and better crafted.
We only need to take a look at the number of people that are supporting
Perl modules compared with the number of people supporting Emacs lisp
modules (and programs) and it's easy to calculate ratio of 50:1. Check
traffic in perl groups vs. Emacs.
If we had Perl as extension language, a vast number of potential
programmers might step in.
jari