Re: font-lock: FSF vs XEmacs
Jake Colman <jake.colman(a)xemacs.org> writes:
First, why does XEmacs have its own, very different, version of
font-lock?
This is, to me, a strange question. XEmacs has had font-lock from
*very* long ago (possibly before FSF), and until recently it was not
at all clear which version was "better". It's sort of like asking why
we have a different version of isearch or a different version of
`files.el'.
Even if we painstakingly imported the latest FSF version, who is to
guarantee that they won't change it as soon as they add another
feature to their internals? This has happened many times in the past,
and it's a losing game because their more recent version will always
be considered "latest and greatest". The "synching" process is in
fact so ardous that it's often easier to maintain a feature-by-feature
equivalent version.
Plus, synching forces us to only use the compatible API's, even where
our API's are better. Under so rigorous constraints it would be wiser
to just stop using XEmacs altogether.
I'd really like to use this function and this comment does not
quite
do it for me. Can anyone tell me why it's missing?
I assume that, so far, noone has needed it. Maybe it wouldn't be that
hard to add?
Jake Colman -- XEmacs Tinkerer
Go ahead and tinker! :-)