[pulisse]

So that's why emacs whigs out sometimes when trying to open very large files: because it has a recursive GC that has trouble when it runs out of stack space. Assuming I read the first statement correctly.

That doesn't seem right to me. (a) In emacs a file's contents aren't stored in a deeply nested structure, no matter what the size. It's a gap buffer. (b) Structure aside, that buffer isn't a Lisp object, but an object internal to the C level, so not subject to GC. And note that Emacs's large file behavior isn't especially different than other non-minimalist editors[1].

https://github.com/jhallen/joes-sandbox/tree/master/editor-p...