Re: Using CL in Gnus

[Reiner Steib <4.uce.03.r.s@nurfuerspam.de>]

On Wed, Nov 26 2003, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:

>>>>>> In <v9y8u3cqiq.fsf@marauder.physik.uni-ulm.de>
>>>>>>	Reiner Steib <4.uce.03.r.s@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
[...]
> That's quite right.  However, Gnus 5.11 to be shipped is for
> Emacs 21.4, not for Emacs 20.  

Yes (this is what I mentioned below).

> And the latest compiled Gnus doesn't require cl in Emacs 21 as far
> as I know.

Yes, it doesn't.

>> OTOH, Gnus 5.10.x (labeled Gnus 5.11) will be included in Emacs 21.y
>> where the relevant functions for `spam-stat.el' (gethash
>> hash-table-count make-hash-table mapc puthash) are built-in functions
>> already.  So I'm not sure how relevant it is to avoid mapc and friends
>> in Gnus 5.10.
>
> Well, is it impossible that Gnus 5.11 will not support Emacs 20 [...]?

[ Gnus 5.11 will be more or less identical to Gnus 5.10.x, as Gnus 5.9
(from Emacs 21.[1-3]) is more or less Gnus 5.8.8.]  IIRC it is still
our policy to support Emacs 20.7 (and XEmacs 21.1) and up, see (info
"(gnus)Emacsen").

> It is a block to program freely, isn't it?  Although dgnushack.el
> probably will not be contained in Emacs 21.4, there are odd items
> and old fashioned codes for Emacs 20 here there and elsewhere (which
> also means that it may be hard to remove them).

I agree.  Probably we should drop Emacs 20.7 (and XEmacs < 21.4?) in
the No Gnus series.  There are not enough developers using and/or
testing with this Emacs versions, so it's (sometimes) unsure that it
really works.

,----[ grep -n -w -e mapc *.el ]
| dgnushack.el:83:  (define-compiler-macro mapc (&whole form fn seq &rest rest)
| gnus-agent.el:602:    (mapc
| gnus-registry.el:294:    (mapc
| gnus.el:3197:    (mapc (lambda (name-method)
| gnus.el:3202:    (mapc
| gnus.el:3204:       (mapc (lambda (name-method)
| spam-stat.el:200:				  mapc puthash)))
| spam-stat.el:433:    (mapc (lambda (l)
| spam-stat.el:496:	    (mapc (lambda (entry)
`----

Do I understand the docs correctly, that mapc and mapcar _only_ differ
in the result they give, but not in the side effects?  Did anyone
check if we could use mapcar instead of mapc in gnus.el and
gnus-agent?  IMHO we should replace them, if there's no disadvantage.
*time passes* ...  Now I tried so (and renamed your compiler-macro in
dgnushack.el) and it worked for me with Emacs 20.7.

For `gnus-registry.el' and `spam-stat.el' it's probably not so easy
(more/other cl-functions).  But for people who want those features,
it's probably okay to load CL at run time when using Emacs 20, as
those are quite advanced features.

To make clear that the code in Gnus 5.10 _should_ not use mapc (beside
the two packages `gnus-registry.el' and `spam-stat.el'), I support
your point from your previous article: "Developers, if you think Gnus
still supports Emacs 20, please do so.".  :-)

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo--- PGP key available via WWW   http://rsteib.home.pages.de/