[ianlevesque]

So this is basically the emacs startup hack? Ugh.

[beaconstudios]

for those of us who aren't familiar - what's the emacs startup hack, and why is is detrimental?

[predakanga]

The emacs startup hack is in it's use of a glibc function called "unexec", which essentially serializes the program's state into a single binary which can later be executed normally.

One of the big downsides (and the reason it became well known) is it's lack of portability, as it requires in-depth knowledge of the system's memory structures.

LWN article and previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11001796 Somewhat lower-level article that shines some light: http://emacshorrors.com/posts/unexecute.html

[matttproud]

I was just going to remark, those that don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

[Klathmon]

What's wrong with the emacs startup hack that makes it something that's not worth repeating (and improving upon)?

To me it seems like a fantastic way to improve startup time regardless of language or ecosystem.