pal@calmasd.GE.COM (Peter Lawrence) (12/10/87)
I have some questions about the architecture of emacs and would appreciate resonses from anyone that knows the history and or the current design of emacs regarding the issues below. Why was lisp chosen as the language to write the front end to emacs. Is this primarily because lisp is interpretive; that individual functions can be recompiled without traditional linking; if so were other interpretive languages investigated. Is this because lisp is 'type less' and that makes coding quicker and easier. How is the linkage from the lisp to the "real" code in C made; can only some routines in C be called from lisp, how are they defined and how are variables passed to them; can global C variables be referenced from the lisp code. What has to happen if a new C routines is added and needs to be called from the lisp part. So the questions are basically why and how lisp, any enlightenment will be appreciated. Thanks in advance, Pete Lawrence. -- pal@calmasd.GE.COM or ...!sdcsvax!calmasd!pal