Re: [Ann]: An Implementation of the Shen programming language in Elisp and a call for help

[Stefan Monnier]

[ I thought I had sent a reply but I can't see it, so here's another one.  ]

> However I could use some help with a couple of issues with packaging and
> warnings generated by the byte-compiler:
> 1. I can't seem to get rid of warnings when byte-compiling the generated
> "shen.el" [4] even though I have the byte-compile-warnings property the top
> of the file.  I'm getting a lot of "unused lexical variable" warnings even
> though "lexical" is in the list of warnings.

I recommend you don't touch byte-compile-warnings.  Instead, handle each
warning individually.  For "unused var" warnings, you have various options
(by order of preference):

1- Get rid of the variable.

2- Add an underscore at the beginning of the var's name.  This tells the
   compiler that this variable *should* not be used.

3- Add an artificial use of the var.  Typically a call to `ignore', as in:

   (defun toto (arg1)
     (let ((var2 val))
       (ignore arg1 var2)
       ...))

   This is usually the best way to deal with non-hygienic vars
   introduced in macros where we can't tell if the macro's expansion
   will or will not make use of the variable.

4- Add a (defvar <thevar>) to indicate the variable should use dynamic scoping.

> 2. I would like for the "shen.el" and "shen-primitives.el" [5] file to be
> byte-compiled and loaded right after compilation even though they don't
> have any autoloads. Currently they are only loaded with I call the function
> `shen/repl` [6] which doesn't feel very responsive. Ideally they are loaded
> at the time they are compiled.

I don't understand, sorry: in my context, compilation takes place once and
for all when you install the package, so loading it at that time wouldn't
help all the other times when I use the package without first
byte-compiling it (because it's already byte-compiled).

Could you explain in more details what's your use-case or scenario?


        Stefan