Subject: Re: bug#77469: finder-inf is not autocompiled on installation

From: Gergely Riskó <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2025 16:16:22 +0200

> I hear you, but OTOH compiling this file will make the build a tad
> longer, so it is not coming for free.
>
> In general, we don't compile files that have no code.

Yes, now I understand this much better, and that there is no point in
byte-compilation.

Although adding a coding: ascii (or coding: utf-8) declaration at top
would help a little bit, as discussed in
https://github.com/nilcons/emacs-research/tree/master/parse-speed-byte-compile

I also looked into your statement of "In general, we don't compile
files that have no code", because I was wondering how come that this
is the only file that trips up my elc only dotemacs startup scenario
and not the other files that you refer to.

What I found is that the other files (e.g. subdirs.el) are loaded by
explicitly specifying ".el" extension on load.  Could we do that for
this case?  Is that an acceptable compromise to not make the build
slower, but solve my issue?

I'm happy to do the work and provide a patch, but before doing any
work that is potentially incorrect or wrong, I of course wanted to
hear your opinions.  This change would also make the startup a little
bit nicer in the sense that the explicit load with filename (instead
of current filename less require) will also be able to skip the
load-path.

Should we also include the "coding: ascii" on top of the file to make
loading faster?

Cheers,
Gergely