Re: Very interesting analysis of "the state of Emacs"

[Paul Michael Reilly <pmr@pajato.com>]

Thomas Lord wrote:
 > Emacs developers might find value in reading this analysis by Steve 
Yegge:
 >
 > 
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/04/xemacs-is-dead-long-live-xemacs.html 


This is a terrific read.  It captures the top two items on my
Gnu/Emacs wish list: first class browsing and multi-threading.

If ever I prayed for the success of an Emacs library coding effort, it
would definitely have been for w3 mode by William Perry.  But it
clearly was a very hard problem.  I've seen signs of improvement in
graphics rendering over the years that makes me believe a decent
browsing experience can be had.  But it's not there yet.

The other hard problem is multi-tasking in the Emacs Lisp engine.
RMS once left me with the impression that this was virtually
intractable, especially if one wanted to have existing Elisp code base
compatibility, a reasonable thing to want.

So I see the best bet for achieving the holy grail of fast browsing,
emacs editing and multi-threading will be via embedding Emacs into the
browser such that every tab/screen IS an Emacs buffer/frame, rendered
in one of some small number (two?) of easily selectable alternatives.
Admittedly, how multi-threading fits into that model is blurry at
best.

But then Steve's point about this solution being fraught with ugliness
if left in the hands of the Mozilla foundation is extremely well
taken.

So all in all, suggesting that the XEmacs folks be encouraged to
pursue these kinds of hard problems under the Gnu/Emacs umbrella is a 
great suggestion, IMHO.

-pmr