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diff --git a/2020/info/38.md b/2020/info/38.md index ad987bc0..de667557 100644 --- a/2020/info/38.md +++ b/2020/info/38.md @@ -1,8 +1,9 @@ # Emacs development update John Wiegley -[[!template id=vid src="https://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/emacsconf/2020/emacsconf-2020--38-emacs-development-update--john-wiegley.webm"]] +[[!template id=vid src="https://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/emacsconf/2020/emacsconf-2020--38-emacs-development-update--john-wiegley.webm" size="75M" subtitles="/2020/subtitles/emacsconf-2020--38-emacs-development-update--john-wiegley.vtt" duration="5:07"]] [Download compressed .webm video (8.4M)](https://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/emacsconf/2020/smaller/emacsconf-2020--38-emacs-development-update--john-wiegley--vp9-q56-video-original-audio.webm) +[View transcript](#transcript) - Actual start and end time (EST): Start 2020-11-29T09.12.40; End: 2020-11-29T09.17.51 @@ -27,4 +28,90 @@ John Wiegley - Emacs 27.2 will be released soon - Emacs 28 will have better emoji support 🎉 (within C code). No timeline for 28 currently. +<!-- transcript: 2020/subtitles/emacsconf-2020--38-emacs-development-update--john-wiegley.vtt --> +<a name="transcript"></a> +# Transcript + +Hello EmacsConf! This is John Wiegley, I'm one of the co-maintainers +of Emacs along with Eli Zaretskii and Lars Ingebrigtsen, and I wanted +to give you a technical update on what has been happening with the +Emacs in the last year. So, specifically we have a few notes that +I've gotten from a call with Eli, he's been in charge of directing +most of the technical contributions on the mailing list and monitoring +all the patches. So, I'm more here just as a messenger. + +(00:33) He says that we have good progress and support for Cairo, this +is going to be enabled by default in Emacs 28, and Cairo plus HarfBuzz +is going to be the preferred rendering combination. So, Cairo support +is not new, but in the past there were a lot of bugs in the code, and +so it was made experimental. Most of those bugs have been fixed +recently, and now it becomes the default in the next major version, +which will enable several good features such as color emojis, if +you're looking forward to those. Xft, as a result is deprecated. There +are bugs not getting fixed in that code, it doesn't appear to be very +well maintained. It was the most advanced font backend in Emacs before +Cairo became dependable. So, now that we have a more a better +maintained and available solution in Cairo, we're going to go from +that, go from Xft to that. + +(01:21) Native compilation in Lisp will also be landing soon. It's +currently on a branch, but there are several people using it, they +say, they're very impressed. It does require live GCC JIT to be +installed for it to work, and this means you have to have GCC 10 +installed. Execution of Emacs Lisp with native compilation on is about +2.5 times faster than the bytecode interpreter, we don't yet have any +measurements on memory or how it affects resources besides CPU, so, we +do look forward to having more numbers and analysis to see what the +real impact of that is going to be, also, it may vary in compute +advantage based on the type of workload that you're performing. A +downside to the native compilation at the moment is that, it takes a +long time to compile even when you're doing a 16 core build of Emacs, +it can still take 15 minutes to compile Emacs and all of its Lisp code +with this enabled. Also, this is going to have to happen on every +user's machine because we cannot distribute the native compilation +products, they are specific to the processor that you might be running +on. So, the Emacs distribution will remain much as it is now, but if +you want to have the benefits of natively compiled core Lisp files, +you're going to have to spend that time and have GCC 10 available to +get that compilation support. + +(02:45) The GTK only build is being prepared for merging. What this +does is, it throws away most of the other tool kits that Emacs was +using and relies only on GTK, making Emacs much more of a GTK +application than it has been. The main issue here is that we were +abusing GTK in some ways that weren't really meant, and now we're +going to be more of a first club…, GTK will be more of a first class +citizen in the approach and the ways that we use it, and be using it +in the ways that the GTK developers intended. + +(03:21) There is going to be much more support for xt-mouse. So, +xt-mouse allows you to use your mouse inside of a terminal window, +which you could do before, but there were certain aspects such as +menus that weren't supported. So, instead of having kind of partial +support for mouse inside of an XTerm, with xt-mouse, you get full +support. This is going to allow changes in the way that things can be +bound, the ways that key bindings can…, the mouse events can be mapped +to key bindings while in XTerms, and yeah, little by little this +support is being extended even further, so we look forward to seeing +that develop in the near term. Once this is merged by the way, also +then Emacs will have mouse support in every one of its available +configurations, which has not been true until now. + +(04:12) Emacs 27 will be soon releasing 27.2, and the pretest for that +should begin sometime soon after EmacsConf is done. + +(04:20) And finally Emacs 28 is going to get better emoji support, +right now emojis are registered internally within Emacs as symbols +which works in some ways but does not support some of the special +features of emojis such as different skin tones for the hand emoji or +face emojis. In Emacs 28, emojis are going to have their own support +within the C code, and then this is going to allow those types of +variations and other emoji specific font setups. + +(04:51) So, that is everything for Emacs in the future, I don't have a +timeline for you on when 28 will be available, but 27 is going to keep +improving until we're ready to get there. So, have fun with the rest +of EmacsConf, and I hope to see you there, Bye. + +<!-- /transcript --> |