Re: Motif support

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com>
> Cc: luangruo@yahoo.com,  enometh@meer.net,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2021 18:47:09 +0100
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > That was basically the second time Po Lu implemented something in the
> > display engine, and the first time he had to deal with layout code, so
> > some guidance should be expected, for a complex piece of software that
> > takes more than 40K LOC.  From my POV, the guidance he needed was
> > relatively minor; most of the discussion was about the various
> > implementation strategies.
> Of course guidance is needed and expected. I have no problem with that, I just
> reac on him saying it is missinformation to say that Emacs is not so easy to
> hack. You say it's complex, he says it's easy :).

That's not a contradiction, however strange it may sound.  Doing
localized changes is relatively easy even in a complex piece of
software.  The guidance that is needed is just to point to the
relevant functions.

> And as said, amount of time he seems to have to spend on all kind of different
> OS:s, Emacs parts and all different discussion seems to be quite
> tremendous. Expecting everyone to have that time is unrealistic. 

The time you need for a change depends on how simple or complex the
change is.  Not everyone is expected to make significant changes,
there's a lot of place for relatively simple ones.

> But yes of course the guidance is needed for people new to it, and everyone
> needs help; I have got help, and everyone else gets help, so it should be of
> course. But nobody needs accusation for spreading missinformation when saying
> things are complex and could be simpler.

Accusations aside, I think your impression of the Emacs code being an
impenetrable undocumented mess is way too extreme.