Automated commit

1 files changed, 727 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/2025/captions/emacsconf-2025-modern--some-problems-of-modernizing-emacs--eduardo-ochs--main.vtt b/2025/captions/emacsconf-2025-modern--some-problems-of-modernizing-emacs--eduardo-ochs--main.vtt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..e461b1f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2025/captions/emacsconf-2025-modern--some-problems-of-modernizing-emacs--eduardo-ochs--main.vtt
@@ -0,0 +1,727 @@
+WEBVTT
+Kind: captions
+Language: en-GB
+
+00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:55.000
+ 
+
+00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:57.000
+Hi! My name is Eduardo Ochs. I'm the
+
+00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:00.000
+author of an Emacs package called eev and
+
+00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:03.000
+the title of this video is
+
+00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:05.000
+"Some problems of modernizing Emacs".
+
+00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:08.000
+Here is a summary of the main themes
+
+00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:10.000
+of this video. I'm going to talk mainly
+
+00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:12.000
+about these four things here. The first
+
+00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:15.000
+one is that Emacs has changed a lot in its
+
+00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:18.000
+recent versions, and now it has lots of
+
+00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:21.000
+types... so if we want to look under the
+
+00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:24.000
+hood and to understand what Emacs
+
+00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:27.000
+really does we are going to stumble on
+
+00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:30.000
+lots of types... and the
+
+00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.000
+current tree of classes and types
+
+00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:37.000
+looks like this... that is,
+
+00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:46.000
+is quite big.
+
+00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:49.000
+The second theme is that people used
+
+00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:53.000
+to say things like "Anyone can learn Lisp
+
+00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:56.000
+in one day"... I'm going to explain
+
+00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:01.000
+this quote, and I'm also going to show
+
+00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:04.000
+that now this is gone... anyway. This is a
+
+00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:08.000
+very short summary... details soon.
+
+00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:10.000
+I will also show how to display
+
+00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:13.000
+better "inner views" of Emacs objects...
+
+00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:16.000
+I'm going to Define what is an inner view,
+
+00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:18.000
+of course.
+
+00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:20.000
+The main trick is that we are going
+
+00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:24.000
+to use one of the ways of displaying
+
+00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:29.000
+internal objects, that is the `cl-print'
+
+00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:32.000
+family of functions, for example,
+
+00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:35.000
+`cl-prin1-to-string', and here are some
+
+00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:37.000
+examples of the kind of output that we
+
+00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:38.000
+are going to see...
+
+00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:44.000
+for example, if we run these two lines
+
+00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.000
+here the first line defines a function `foo'
+
+00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:52.000
+and the second line sets `o' to the
+
+00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:54.000
+internal view of the definition of `foo'.
+
+00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:59.000
+In older Emacses `o' would be just a
+
+00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:02.000
+list that looks... that would look very
+
+00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:05.000
+similar to this line here... but in newer
+
+00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:09.000
+Emacses the result of this - I mean, the
+
+00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:12.000
+the contents of `o' is this thing here,
+
+00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.000
+that looks quite different
+
+00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:18.000
+from this definition.
+
+00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:21.000
+So, in older Emacses
+
+00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:25.000
+the contents of the
+
+00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:28.000
+function cell of `o'...
+
+00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:30.000
+sorry, of the function cell of `foo',
+
+00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:32.000
+would be an "old-style lambda",
+
+00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:35.000
+that would be just a list like this...
+
+00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:39.000
+and in newer Emacses uh the contents of O would
+
+00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:42.000
+be a "vector-like lambda"... look for the
+
+00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:44.000
+square brackets here - this is a
+
+00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:47.000
+vector, but it is preceded by a hash sign.
+
+00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:49.000
+So this is what we call
+
+00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:51.000
+a "vector-like lambda",
+
+00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:53.000
+and vector-like lambas do not
+
+00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:55.000
+have a canonical printed representation -
+
+00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:57.000
+they have at least two semicanonical
+
+00:03:57.000 --> 00:03:59.000
+printed representations...
+
+00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:01.000
+The first semicanonical
+
+00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:04.000
+printed representation is this one, that is
+
+00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:07.000
+generated by a family of functions with
+
+00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:09.000
+names like `prin1'...
+
+00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:13.000
+and the second semicanonical printed
+
+00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:17.000
+representation is like this -
+
+00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:20.000
+it looks like a list...
+
+00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:23.000
+it looks somewhat like this definition
+
+00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:27.000
+of `foo' here, but it has this
+
+00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:29.000
+`:dynbind' symbol here...
+
+00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:32.000
+and it turns out that when we use
+
+00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:35.000
+the `cl-print' family of functions we can
+
+00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:37.000
+reconfigure how things are printed...
+
+00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:40.000
+and I'm going to show several interesting
+
+00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:47.000
+ways of reconfiguring how lambdas are printed,
+
+00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:49.000
+and one of the ways is going to
+
+00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:52.000
+be like this.
+
+00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:56.000
+We can also use the `cl-print'
+
+00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:59.000
+functions with my indentation tricks to
+
+00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:04.000
+to display how types, or classes, are
+
+00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:07.000
+viewed internally by Emacs, and this is a
+
+00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:10.000
+big example...
+
+00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:14.000
+This is what Emacs considers as being
+
+00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:16.000
+the definition of the type
+
+00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:18.000
+`cl-structure-class',
+
+00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.000
+class and it is this big thing here.
+
+00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:24.000
+I edited it very lightly...
+
+00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:30.000
+I just uh deleted some line breaks here.
+
+00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:33.000
+And another thing that I want to to
+
+00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:35.000
+explain is that Emacs
+
+00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:37.000
+has some help functions that
+
+00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:39.000
+I have never liked...
+
+00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:41.000
+for most people they are good enough,
+
+00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:44.000
+but for me they aren't... they...
+
+00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:48.000
+uh, well - I'm going to say
+
+00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:50.000
+more about this later...
+
+00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:52.000
+and, for example,
+
+00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:54.000
+if we want a description of what is
+
+00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:58.000
+this type here, that we just saw in
+
+00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:00.000
+its internal view here...
+
+00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.000
+we can run either `describe-type'
+
+00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:04.000
+or my variant of `describe-type',
+
+00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:07.000
+and we get a help buffer
+
+00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:10.000
+that looks like this, in which
+
+00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.000
+these blue things that are underlined
+
+00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:15.000
+are "buttons", in the classical sense...
+
+00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:17.000
+you can click on these buttons, or type
+
+00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:19.000
+RET on these buttons, and you will be
+
+00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:22.000
+taken to another help page, that is
+
+00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:24.000
+generated dynamically...
+
+00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:28.000
+and you can navigate back and forth...
+
+00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.000
+and well, whatever...
+
+00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:33.000
+and I'm going to explain my
+
+00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:35.000
+problems with these kinds of help buffers
+
+00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:37.000
+and what I'm trying to do to
+
+00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:41.000
+overcome these problems...
+
+00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.000
+One of my slogans in this video
+
+00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:43.000
+is going to be this one:
+
+00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.000
+"Anyone can learn Lisp in one day".
+
+00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:49.000
+this is a part of a bigger quote
+
+00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:51.000
+that I took from a keynote presentation
+
+00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:54.000
+by Abelson and Sussman, who
+
+00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:58.000
+are two dinosaurs of Computer Science...
+
+00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:00.000
+Here is the full quote:
+
+00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:04.000
+"Anyone can learn Lisp in one day -
+
+00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:06.000
+except that if they already know Fortran
+
+00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:11.000
+then it would take three days."
+
+00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:24.000
+This is a frame of the video...
+
+00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:28.000
+By the way I am going to to add
+
+00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:32.000
+this... "and if the person is starting
+
+00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:34.000
+with Doom Emacs then it would take 5 years."
+
+00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:39.000
+why? I'm going to explain why.
+
+00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:43.000
+This is how Emacs used to be.
+
+00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:46.000
+If we execute these two expressions here
+
+00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:51.000
+the first one... sorry, each symbol can
+
+00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:53.000
+have two "values",
+
+00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:54.000
+one is its "value as a variable"
+
+00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:58.000
+and another one is its "value as a function"...
+
+00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:02.000
+and if we run this we store 42
+
+00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:07.000
+in the "value cell" of the symbol `foo', and
+
+00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:11.000
+if we run this defun here it stores a
+
+00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:14.000
+certain anonymous function in the
+
+00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:18.000
+"function cell" of the symbol `foo'...
+
+00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:22.000
+and in Emacs, until some time ago
+
+00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:27.000
+if we did that and and if we ran
+
+00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:30.000
+this expression here the result
+
+00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:31.000
+would be 42,
+
+00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:35.000
+because of this line here, and if we
+
+00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:37.000
+ran this line here the result would be
+
+00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:40.000
+the anonymous function corresponding to
+
+00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:41.000
+this defun here...
+
+00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:45.000
+but now this has changed...
+
+00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:48.000
+the result of this thing here is this
+
+00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:51.000
+vector-like lambda here - but that doesn't
+
+00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:54.000
+matter much now...
+
+00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:56.000
+So, until some time ago
+
+00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:58.000
+if we did that and if we ran
+
+00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:01.000
+this expression here, (foo foo)...
+
+00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:04.000
+Emacs would do this: it would
+
+00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:06.000
+replace the first `foo' by this
+
+00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:09.000
+anonymous function here, it would replace
+
+00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:11.000
+the second `foo' by the value of `foo' as a
+
+00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:13.000
+variable, that is 42,
+
+00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:16.000
+and it would evaluate this, and the
+
+00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.000
+result would be 420.
+
+00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:23.000
+So, again, we used to have this slogan
+
+00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:26.000
+here, "anyone can learn Lisp in one day"...
+
+00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:28.000
+but now this is gone.
+
+00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:30.000
+Let me show... let me talk
+
+00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.000
+a bit more about why...
+
+00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:36.000
+the title of this slide is
+
+00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:38.000
+"Lambdas for beginners broken"...
+
+00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:41.000
+if we run this, as I've shown
+
+00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:43.000
+in the previous slide...
+
+00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:45.000
+in the old style, in old Emacses,
+
+00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:47.000
+the result of (symbol-function 'foo)
+
+00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:49.000
+would be this anonymous function here...
+
+00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:54.000
+and now we get this strange thing here.
+
+00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:58.000
+So, this is an "old-style lambda",
+
+00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:02.000
+this is a "vector-like lambda",
+
+00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:05.000
+and until the middle of 2024
+
+00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:08.000
+beginners could learn a lot of Lisp
+
+00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:11.000
+by thinking only in terms of
+
+00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:13.000
+objects like these...
+
+00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:15.000
+this is a function and this
+
+00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:17.000
+is an anonymous function, and
+
+00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:20.000
+they would learn how to draw cons cell
+
+00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:23.000
+diagrams like this thing here and this
+
+00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:25.000
+thing here...
+
+00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:27.000
+they would think on lists as
+
+00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:29.000
+being these trees here, and they
+
+00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:32.000
+would be able to understand a lot of
+
+00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:35.000
+Lisp just by thinking in these terms...
+
+00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:39.000
+and then vector-like lambdas started
+
+00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:43.000
+to appear in many places... and if we use
+
+00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:46.000
+"vector-like lambdas" in a wide sense,
+
+00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:50.000
+to mean all the new objects,
+
+00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.000
+these new objects, that are
+
+00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:56.000
+difficult to visualize... they also started
+
+00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:58.000
+to appear in many places.
+
+00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:01.000
+This is a continuation of the
+
+00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:04.000
+previous slide - this part here is a copy
+
+00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:06.000
+of things that were in the previous slide...
+
+00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:12.000
+before 2024 beginners could
+
+00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:17.000
+open black boxes like this...
+
+00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:20.000
+they could try to see what was in the
+
+00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.000
+function cell of the symbol `foo'...
+
+00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:27.000
+and they would see something elegant and
+
+00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:29.000
+mind-blowing... and they would start to love
+
+00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:31.000
+Lisp immediately.
+
+00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:33.000
+Now what they get - what they see -
+
+00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:35.000
+is a tiny part of a very complex structure
+
+00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:39.000
+that is very powerful but that is
+
+00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:41.000
+very difficult to understand...
+
+00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:44.000
+and now our beginners are overwhelmed
+
+00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:46.000
+instead of mind-blown.
+
+00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:48.000
+Note that I said "black box" here.
+
+00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:52.000
+Let me explain the term.
+
+00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:57.000
+We can open what's inside of `foo'...
+
+00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:59.000
+we can open `foo' to see the contents of
+
+00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:02.000
+the symbol `foo', and we can try to see
+
+00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:06.000
+what's in the function cell of the
+
+00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:08.000
+symbol `foo'...
+
+00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:10.000
+so we can open the box, but what we get
+
+00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:13.000
+is something very difficult to understand,
+
+00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:17.000
+and so I'm going to say that
+
+00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:21.000
+when this happens that box is black.
+
+00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:23.000
+It is not totally black - we can open open it -
+
+00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:26.000
+but we don't understand what is going on there,
+
+00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:30.000
+so we declare that that is black.
+
+00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:33.000
+And... when these things started to happen
+
+00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:38.000
+_I_ was overwhelmed -
+
+00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:40.000
+and in this video I'm going to pretend
+
+00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:44.000
+that I was not the only person
+
+00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:46.000
+that was overwhelmed
+
+00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:50.000
+by these new structures
+
+00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:52.000
+that are not so elegant
+
+00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:54.000
+as the ones that we had before.
+
+00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:56.000
+Anyway...
+
+00:12:56.000 --> 00:20:38.000
+ 
+