the Modernization of Emacs
in [Lisp]
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From: Tim X on 25 Apr 2006 18:22 Ari Johnson <iamtheari(a)gmail.com> writes: > vjp2.at(a)at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com writes: > >> The thing about emacs is you can work at speed-of-thought. >> >> Too many Windows apps are dumbed down. >> >> User friendly is for stupid users. > > User-friendly is also good for: > - Casual users > - Occasional users > - Non-programmers > - Users with less computer experience > - Users with better things to do than learn Emacs > > I know many people for whom user-friendly is mandatory. Very few of > them are stupid. Perhaps true - but then again, emacs obviously isn't the right tool for people like this - why have a high performance car which you only drive to the shops for milk and bread? Emacs is complex because it is extremely powerful. If you don't need the power, then don't use it. If you do want that power, then you have to learn how to use the tool. You cannot get powerful customizable tools able to be configured to work how you want and have it do so out of the box because there is too much variation in what people do. This will have to wait until we have really really intelligent mind reading software which is able to work out what you need autonomously - until then, either use something simple or be prepared to face a learning curve while you gain the power available with emacs. Tim -- tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
From: Fredrik Bulow on 26 Apr 2006 00:30 Someone was complaining to me a while a go that emacs is stuck with old and bad names. He tought that kill sounds like "dead for ever" and shouldn't be used for "cut & paste". Therefor I think everyone should have the following line in their .emacs. (fset 'revive 'yank) /Fredrik
From: Tim X on 26 Apr 2006 05:26 Hadron Quark <hadronquark(a)gmail.com> writes: > "Greg"posted on 2006-04-25: > >> As far as customizing the emacs installation itself, I agree with you. >> I have a couple customized .el's banging around myself, CM'ed outside >> the emacs tree. I find Emacs a contrived interface for some things, >> so > > Mine is in the emacs tree. But the emacs tree is not for the faint > hearted IMO. > >> I just use better suited (and faster) apps for those things, and skip >> the installation hacking to gain portability. I also stick with FSF >> emacs, xemacs having pissed me off once too often. > > To this day I dont know if this is xemacs or not : it seems to run in > a shell. > > GNU Emacs 21.4.1 (i386-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars) of 2005-05-03 on rothera, modified by Debian > > Synaptic says emacs21 is installed and xemacs21 isnt : so I guess > not. Yet M-x emacs version gives the string above which indicates X is > in use - so I suppose its normal emacs with just enough for it to "run > under X" as opposed to it being XEmacs? is this right? > >> >> I think your backing up issue is probably a symptom of insufficient >> configuration management. >> >> Gregm > > > -- > % Just some clarification - emacs and xemacs are completely different and as each year goes by, seem to resemble each other less and less. From what you have posted, you are running emacs 21.4, not xemacs. This issues you have raised regarding emacs and emacs 'apps' being scattered all over the place is definitely an issue with your configuration management. Emacs has very very few requirements on where things are installed - all that stuff with /etc/emacs, /etc/emacs21 site-start etc is something done by your Linux distribution and absolutely *nothing* to do with emacs. In fact, you can (and I use to) run all my emacs stuff out of my ome directory. In fact, it wasn't so long ago that installing emacs under Linux did pretty much nothing with respect to configuration - it just installed the basic emacs software. Most distributions didn't have all the add on bits, you had to chase those down and install them yourself. Note that Greg is correct in that any problems you are having with backing up your emacs configuration is about how you are managing it and not due to complexities in emacs itself. A few rules of thumb which will possibly help - 1. Don't change/edit anything in /etc/emacs, /etc/emacs21, site-start.el etc. Only make changes to your own .emacs file. 2. If you install an emacs add-on by hand (ie not a Deb package), then decide on a scheme and stick to it. The only thing emacs needs to know about add ons is where to find them (i.e. add the directory to your .emacs file load-path setting). 3. There are some minor exceptions - vm uses .vm and possibly .vm-windows. w3m uses .w3m etc. However, all your configuration should be done in your home directory - think about Linux as a multi-user environment - thats how it is designed. In such environments, you don't want personal configuration options being set on a global level that can affect all users. Such configurations should be put in your home directory. 4. Never run as root unless you have no choice (i.e. installing new packages, shutting down (though there are workarounds for that as well), doing low level system configuration etc). When you do have to use root, use things like sudo - this will ensure you don't shoot yourself in the foot - plenty of sys admins (including myself once) learn this the hard way. I once did a rm -rf * from the root partition when cleaning up a system, after a very long day and forgetting I was logged in as root! However, I know a lot of very experienced and smarter people who have done as bad and worse, so feel I'm in pretty good company! Tim -- tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
From: Hadron Quark on 26 Apr 2006 18:36 Tim X <timx(a)nospam.dev.null> writes: > Ari Johnson <iamtheari(a)gmail.com> writes: > >> vjp2.at(a)at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com writes: >> >>> The thing about emacs is you can work at speed-of-thought. >>> >>> Too many Windows apps are dumbed down. >>> >>> User friendly is for stupid users. >> >> User-friendly is also good for: >> - Casual users >> - Occasional users >> - Non-programmers >> - Users with less computer experience >> - Users with better things to do than learn Emacs >> >> I know many people for whom user-friendly is mandatory. Very few of >> them are stupid. > > Perhaps true - but then again, emacs obviously isn't the right tool > for people like this - why have a high performance car which you only > drive to the shops for milk and bread? People like what? people that want easy things to be easy? Please. > > Emacs is complex because it is extremely powerful. If you don't need > the power, then don't use it. If you do want that power, then you have > to learn how to use the tool. You cannot get powerful customizable Lots of things are powerful. Including your analogy : a performace car. But there is still a steering wheel, a clutch etc. No need to reinvent the wheel ... to extend your analogy. > tools able to be configured to work how you want and have it do so out > of the box because there is too much variation in what people do. This True. > will have to wait until we have really really intelligent mind reading > software which is able to work out what you need autonomously - until > then, either use something simple or be prepared to face a learning > curve while you gain the power available with emacs. No one doubts the power of emacs : it doesnt mean that the "simple" things need to be obfuscated, > > Tim > > -- > tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au -- lithp : syntax error
From: Hadron Quark on 26 Apr 2006 18:44
Tim X <timx(a)nospam.dev.null> writes: > Hadron Quark <hadronquark(a)gmail.com> writes: > >> "Greg"posted on 2006-04-25: >> >>> As far as customizing the emacs installation itself, I agree with you. >>> I have a couple customized .el's banging around myself, CM'ed outside >>> the emacs tree. I find Emacs a contrived interface for some things, >>> so >> >> Mine is in the emacs tree. But the emacs tree is not for the faint >> hearted IMO. >> >>> I just use better suited (and faster) apps for those things, and skip >>> the installation hacking to gain portability. I also stick with FSF >>> emacs, xemacs having pissed me off once too often. >> >> To this day I dont know if this is xemacs or not : it seems to run in >> a shell. >> >> GNU Emacs 21.4.1 (i386-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars) of 2005-05-03 on rothera, modified by Debian >> >> Synaptic says emacs21 is installed and xemacs21 isnt : so I guess >> not. Yet M-x emacs version gives the string above which indicates X is >> in use - so I suppose its normal emacs with just enough for it to "run >> under X" as opposed to it being XEmacs? is this right? >> >>> >>> I think your backing up issue is probably a symptom of insufficient >>> configuration management. >>> >>> Gregm >> >> >> -- >> % > > Just some clarification - emacs and xemacs are completely different > and as each year goes by, seem to resemble each other less and less. > From what you have posted, you are running emacs 21.4, not xemacs. > > This issues you have raised regarding emacs and emacs 'apps' being > scattered all over the place is definitely an issue with your > configuration management. Emacs has very very few requirements on > where things are installed - all that stuff with /etc/emacs, > /etc/emacs21 site-start etc is something done by your Linux > distribution and absolutely *nothing* to do with emacs. In fact, you > can (and I use to) run all my emacs stuff out of my ome directory. Fine : in a one person installation. > > In fact, it wasn't so long ago that installing emacs under Linux did > pretty much nothing with respect to configuration - it just installed > the basic emacs software. Most distributions didn't have all the add > on bits, you had to chase those down and install them yourself. I dont understand your point. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand : installing lisp files in a linux multi user environment. > > Note that Greg is correct in that any problems you are having with > backing up your emacs configuration is about how you are managing it > and not due to complexities in emacs itself. A few rules of thumb > which will possibly help - > > 1. Don't change/edit anything in /etc/emacs, /etc/emacs21, > site-start.el etc. Only make changes to your own .emacs file. You dont have a multi user installation : it is easy if you are a one man show. > > 2. If you install an emacs add-on by hand (ie not a Deb package), then > decide on a scheme and stick to it. The only thing emacs needs to > know about add ons is where to find them (i.e. add the directory to > your .emacs file load-path setting). See above. Also note that the things we install (through debian packages) also take different paths to installing : this was my point in how it can be confusing to know the *best* way to do it. > > 3. There are some minor exceptions - vm uses .vm and possibly hmm. Minor exceptions? Most emacs extensions that you want "latest versions for are not in debian packages. They are are .el files. > .vm-windows. w3m uses .w3m etc. However, all your configuration > should be done in your home directory - think about Linux as a > multi-user environment - thats how it is designed. In such Linus is a multiuser environment : hence the difficulty in knowing hos *best* to install extensions you want open to all logins. There are a myriad of ways of doing it. and a *lot* of emacs addons are hacks from lisp experts who dont really offer suported ways of how to install it for the best. > environments, you don't want personal configuration options being > set on a global level that can affect all users. Such > configurations should be put in your home directory. > > 4. Never run as root unless you have no choice (i.e. installing new > packages, shutting down (though there are workarounds for that as eh? Where did this come from? You must sudo to root to install things for multi-user access. Hence my comment on the complexity of the emacs linux tree. And it is complicated : for someone who wants to use a "more powerful editor". I use emacs as a C and an ADA development environment. > well), doing low level system configuration etc). When you do have > to use root, use things like sudo - this will ensure you don't I know. > shoot yourself in the foot - plenty of sys admins (including myself > once) learn this the hard way. I once did a rm -rf * from the root > partition when cleaning up a system, after a very long day and > forgetting I was logged in as root! However, I know a lot of very > experienced and smarter people who have done as bad and worse, so > feel I'm in pretty good company! Personally I always use sudo. > > Tim > > -- > tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au -- lithp : syntax error |