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# Object Oriented Code in the Gnus Newsreader
Sunday, Nov 29 2020,  3:11 PM -  3:31 PM  
Eric Abrahamsen

The venerable Gnus newsreader has evolved over the years to interface
with many different types of news- or mail-like backend programs,
presenting all of them using a unified interface.  This sort of
software often calls for an object-oriented architecture, at least as
regards polymorphism, yet Gnus was written well before Emacs lisp
acquired the object-oriented tools and libraries &#x2013; largely borrowed
from Common Lisp &#x2013; that it boasts today.

Yet Gnus needed something "object-oriented-like", and so nnoo.el was
born: a rather amazing (and frankly terrifying) implementation of
object-oriented behavior using functional code.

This talk will be a brief introduction to how this existing system
works, and to the ongoing, incremental effort to port it over to newer
Elisp tools like generic functions, structs, and objects.





Back to the [[schedule]]  
Previous: <a href="/2020/schedule/31">Lakota Language and Emacs</a>  
Next: <a href="/2020/schedule/33">Maxima a computer algebra system in Emacs</a>  


All times are approximate, and we might shuffle talks around as needed.
Please check <https://emacsconf.org/2020> a few days before the start of the
conference for instructions on how to watch and participate. See you then!
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