Re: cc-mode fontification feels random

[João Távora]

Theodor Thornhill <theo@thornhill.no> writes:

> Pinging @Ubolonton and Joao, as they probably know way more than
> me about this.

Here are my quick views on this:

- Eglot can add LSP fontification support, that doesn't seem hard.

- However, LSP support for fontification seems like it's potentially
  _less_ efficient than integrating something like tree-sitter as a C
  module in Emacs.  That's because the contents of the buffer and
  fontification results are continually transmitted back and forth via
  pipes and JSON format.

- Moreover, if one wishes 100% out-of-the-box support for LSP (this or
  any other feature), one needs to also distribute a capable server
  program.  For C/C++ this is potentially problematic due to licensing
  issues: the most capable such program for C/C++, is to the best of my
  limited knowldge, clangd.  There are others, though.

- The past few weeks I've been trying to get back to the long-stated
  goal of integrating Eglot into Emacs proper, as discussed some time
  ago.  The idea is to first let it be an independent extension much
  like it is now, then experiment with integrating its functionality
  directly in major modes, eventually evolving into an out-of-the-box,
  seamless
  "i-dont-even-know-that-LSP-is-being-leveraged-in-the-background"
  experience for documentation, definition-finding, diagnostics, etc.
  And also fontification, of course, but my gut feeling says that
  tree-sitter (or any other integrated parser) approach is more
  efficient and "tighter" for such a basic thing.

João