Re: using cl-lib Was: [bug?][ob-core] using remove-if

[Eric Schulte <schulte.eric@gmail.com>]

Aaron Ecay <aaronecay@gmail.com> writes:

> There is light at the end of this tunnel: emacs 24.3 introduced the
> cl-lib package, making cl functions canonically available with a ‘cl-’
> prefix.  So once emacs 26 is out (and support for emacs 24.[12] is
> dropped), org can use the cl- versions
>

Great, so long term we will be able to drop all of the org-* versions of
cl-* functions.  I wasn't aware, thanks for sharing.

>
> cl-lib is also on GNU ELPA, so org could decide to start using it today
> as long as that external dependency is properly handled.

I personally find this very appealing.  I see the following benefits and
drawbacks.

Benefits:
1. we could use the full power of cl-* functions and macros

2. we could remove all of the org-* re-writes of cl-* functions reducing
   the amount of code we have to maintain, and

3. we will presumably be making this change anyway at some point down
   the line (whenever Emacs 26 is released)

Drawbacks:
1. it adds another step (installing cl-lib) to Org-mode installation on
   the great majority of systems

2. it adds a dependency for Org-mode instillation, also, if cl-lib
   doesn't support some of the targets currently supported by Org-mode
   (e.g., maybe Emacs23 or XEmacs)

3. if Org-mode is loaded in Emacs by default, then that would mean that
   cl-lib would also need to be loaded in Emacs by default, would that
   be okay with the Emacs maintainers?

I'm sure I'm missing other points.  I guess for now at least the
drawbacks probably out-weight the benefits, but I look forward to when
we do make this transition.

Cheers,

-- 
Eric Schulte
http://cs.unm.edu/~eschulte
PGP: 0x614CA05D