[isabelle-dev] PG 3.x vs. 4.x settings

[Makarius]

On Wed, 12 Dec 2012, Lawrence Paulson wrote:

> I compiled 4.2, no problem.

You mean byte-compiled .el -> .elc?  This causes a lock-in to a particular 
Emacs version, so it reduces chances of users being able to run it.

I used to have the principle that even in the Isabelle.app bundle the 
included Emacs.app is merely a sensible default that users may override. 
On Linux, Emacs is not bundled at all, so one needs to expect a certain 
range of GNU Emacs 23 .. 24 versions, probably not Emacs 22 anymore.

Shipping byte-compiled files works against that.  The Isabelle "component" 
for Proof General needs to work with the variety of situations uniformly 
-- we don't have component variants.  Whatever is done in the component 
wrapper scripts, it needs to work without the "make" tool, which is absent 
on the majority of systems now.


 	Makarius