[slime-devel] Re: recording and compiling changed definitions

[Nikodemus Siivola]

Helmut Eller wrote:
> * Nikodemus Siivola [2007-04-09 22:01+0200] writes:

> You don't need to generate code for those parts which haven't changed.
> Isn't that very interesting information?  Wasn't there some hack from
> Andreas Fuchs which used macroexpand hooks to find the changed bits?
> It didn't use the editor.

Andreas' hack was a source-level dependecy groveler, not a change finder.
(At least I am not aware of any change-finder by him or anyone else.)
It does essentially what XREF does.

To find changes the compiler would either need to save a private
copy of the original source, which is not a trivial expense for
large systems.

>> That is the key bit of information that is naturally in the editor.
> 
> I don't know about Vi but many editors can't be programmed as easily
> as Emacs.  For those editors it's much easier if the hard work is done
> by some external tool.

True, but editor is still much closer to the information "which definitions
have changed" then the compiler, and if the files have not been saved
editor is the only place where that information can be.

At any rate, I think moving stuff to contribs/plugins is a swell idea.

Cheers,

  -- Nikodemus