Re: announcing synfl, the next generation of fontlock

>>>>> "dvl" == Didier Verna <[email protected]> writes:

    dvl> Funny, I've had a very similar idea in mind for some time.

Doesn't surprise me.

    dvl> SGLR module

Uh, do you mean an ELL?  I don't think that's the way to go.  You
could provide the relevant hooks in C, but I see no reason to believe
that a Lisp parser can't be plenty fast.

    dvl> 1/ The concept of major-mode is obsolete. I'd like to see a
    dvl> real (read native) implementation of multi-mode (meta-mode ?) 
    dvl> or whatever-I-dont-remember-the-name-exactly. You know, when
    dvl> the point is within a C comment, the mode should really be
    dvl> text-mode and so on.

That's right.  The major mode should be an extent property, not a
buffer property.  I've been thinking about that for a long time but
never had the nerve to do anything with it.

    dvl> 2/ Next step would be incremental parsing. I currently don't
    dvl> have any knowledge on this matter.

I'm not sure what you mean.  With a properly designed grammar, I'm
pretty sure that it's possible to restart synfl at the beginning of
any extent corresponding to a nonterminal of the grammar.  I doubt
that's true of any of the fancy libraries, but i'd love to be proved
wrong.


-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.