27 Feb
2017
27 Feb
'17
12:41 p.m.
On 26 Feb 2017, at 19:16, David
<david(a)kdbarto.org> wrote:
I remember that GNU Emacs launched the first time and then dumped itself out as a core
file. Each subsequent launch would then ‘undump’ itself back into memory. All this because
launching emacs the first time required compiling all that lisp code.
It still works like that. Indeed that's the conventional way that Lisp systems tend
to work for delivering applications: you compile and load your code into a running image
and then dump that image in a form where it can be reloaded quickly. The dumped image is
either directly executable or is loaded by some small bootstrap loader which might also
provide some low-level support (but might not: all that can be in the dumped image). What
you call these dumped images depends on your culture: they might be 'worlds',
'bands' or 'sysouts' among other things.
(There are often also compiled files which are generally called fasl files, though in
emacs they are elc files.)