Re: Speeding up Emacs load time

[Rustom Mody]

On Saturday, June 29, 2013 10:34:05 AM UTC+5:30, Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
> Emanuel Berg  writes:
> > Bob Proulx  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. 

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

I agree with both these viewpoints -- One second of x is not the same at y.
But not repeatedly restarting emacs is not an option.

The problem is that emacs invites tinkering with my elisp settings.
And elisp is such an imperative language that I habitually get silly things 
wrong. eg

I am hacking an elisp function called foo
For some reason I change its name to bar
I change (what I think are) all refs to foo to bar.
It (seems to) run
The next time I start emacs it does not run because I find that I had not 
renamed all foo-references to bar.

So the only remedy (I know) is that first check if the elisp works and if it 
seems to then check again after restarting emacs.

And that means that elisp-hacking means frequent restarts of emacs.