"J. Kean Johnston" <jkj(a)sco.com> writes:
Once the module loading technology is in place and people are
happier with it, I would like to start work on ripping out major
parts of XEmacs and putting them in modules. I havem in my
prototype tree, a mechanism in place where a given source file can
either be compiled in as part of the dumped Emacs, or as a module.
If module loading is availible, the makefile is constructed in such
a way that it compiles things as modules rather than part of the
dumped Emacs. This is a good thing.
This is very cool. Two questions:
1) How will you handle this on systems without dynamic linking
(e.g. Ultrix)?
2) Do you handle autoloading and unloading of modules? It would be
nice if you could autoload a dynamic module. It would also be very
cool if you could unload a module, or even "swap it out" after a
certain period of disuse...
It is not only possible, but preferable (I believe) to make large
parts of XEmacs modules. It will also make distribution a lot
easier. I am working on making the TTY and X11 code loadable, so
that you only ever load in those parts that you care about.
Note that this might make XEmacs startup significantly slower. Given
how slow startup is now, we should watch out for this.
I find this all very exciting, and think we could be on our way to a
new Emacs era (*drum roll*). Lets talk about this, and lots.
I think we should write code instead of talking about it. :-) But
yes, I like the idea.
The idea I *don't* like is that third parties will start writing
modules. I can elaborate on this.