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Re: what is the point of point-min?


From: Greg Hill
Subject: Re: what is the point of point-min?
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 14:11:30 -0700

At 10:05 PM +0200 8/28/03, Kai Großjohann wrote:
Jesper Harder <harder@myrealbox.com> writes:

 If they were Lisp functions I would have just read the source.  But

 * I hate reading C.

Well, reading Emacs C code is very unlike reading other C code, so
please do give it a try.

Indeed it is.  In fact, until you have mastered the peculiar coding
conventions it adheres to, including the usage of ten billion
#defined terms whose meanings are far from obvious, it is very VERY
much more difficult than reading any other C code that I have ever
encountered.  For all intents and purposes, Emacs C is a language
unto itself, whose mastery is much more difficult than any "general
purpose" language like LISP.  Though not by any means a "C guru," I
have done a fair amount of both writing C code from scratch and
maintaining other people's C code; and I have long-since concluded
that looking at the C source for Emacs hoping to figure out what it
is doing is a total waste of my time.  I have never made any
significant progress in anything close to a reasonable amount of time.

So "give it a try" at the risk of your sanity.  And don't feel bad it
the experience leaves you feeling totally frustrated, irritated and
alienated.

--Greg




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