* Nikodemus Siivola [2007-04-09 22:01+0200] writes:
Helmut Eller wrote:
Because it's more precise and needs less complicated code in Emacs. Why re-implement half of the compiler in Emacs?
Speaking as an SBCL developer: it makes sense for SBCL to track XREF information, and it /might/ make even sense to support "recompile definitions that depend on FOO", but I don't see any sense in SBCL scanning files and trying to figure out which bits have changed.
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.
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.
Helmut.