Re: Operation "Fat Emacs"

Philip Kaludercic <[email protected]> writes:

> Ernesto CENUSA <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> Philip Kaludercic <[email protected]> writes:
>>> No, I am not aware of any plans in that direction.  That has the
>>> inherent issue that packages would suddenly stop working if they depend
>>> on some part that a more minimal Emacs would throw out.  That being
>>> said, the point has been raised that having a tighter binding between
>>> the core and GNU ELPA would not only make it easier for packages to be
>>> added to the core, but also to move to ELPA if the opinion is that they
>>> would be better maintained there.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks. That makes sense: there is indeed a risk of breaking packages that
>> depend on parts removed from a more minimal Emacs.
>>
>> At the same time, I wonder if that could also be useful as a way to
>> make Emacs' internal dependencies clearer, and perhaps make its
>> architecture more modular, understandable, and predictable over time.
>>
>> It could maybe start in a very incremental way, by trying to remove
>> obviously self-contained pieces first and seeing what breaks. Even if
>> that only reveals tightly entangled dependency clusters, that would
>> still be useful: at least those could be identified, documented, and
>> perhaps disentangled later.
>
> I'd say that is an orthogonal project that can be pursued in parallel.
> There is certainly some synergy between the two goals, but no
> dependency.  Eventually, but I honestly think that this could take a
> _while_, it could serve as the foundation for a properly leaner Emacs
> distribution.


I agree that such a project would likely be fairly long-term, and relatively orthogonal to “Fat Emacs” itself.

And as you said, the two could still share some of the same technical groundwork. So I was wondering where things stand on that side for “Fat Emacs”, and whether there is anything a newcomer could usefully do to help.