From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Marcin Borkowski Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: What improvements would be truly useful? Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2018 21:01:00 +0100 Message-ID: <87muzlt1mr.fsf@mbork.pl> References: <87inaiss6l.fsf@web.de> <6FCF6ACA-4F29-4B6B-BE9D-D7130C6E9495@gnu.org> <87fu5moe4c.fsf@web.de> <877eqyocro.fsf@web.de> <83zi3uz4nb.fsf@gnu.org> <0b1dd3fa-e0b0-ed20-a256-dd92d1c1826f@dancol.org> <8bc3c4c7-dfc7-987a-95e7-bd309e2326c6@cs.ucla.edu> <03118DC0-39DA-4AB5-980E-A33809B9A5EE@raeburn.org> <83sh9es8jw.fsf@gnu.org> <2cdaa88f-f31e-e05c-a940-d83e25c9c167@dancol.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1520366386 8275 195.159.176.226 (6 Mar 2018 19:59:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 19:59:46 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: mu4e 1.1.0; emacs 27.0.50 Cc: eggert@cs.ucla.edu, emacs-devel@gnu.org, raeburn@raeburn.org, eliz@gnu.org, Daniel Colascione , rostislav.svoboda@gmail.com To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Mar 06 20:59:41 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1etIkI-0000oM-At for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 20:59:34 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57853 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1etImL-0005l3-4O for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 15:01:41 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:34868) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1etIm8-0005kC-6P for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 15:01:29 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1etIm7-0007nl-63 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 15:01:28 -0500 Original-Received: from mail.mojserwer.eu ([195.110.48.8]:59755) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1etIm3-0007ms-BZ; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 15:01:23 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mail.mojserwer.eu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51EFEE670A; Tue, 6 Mar 2018 21:01:22 +0100 (CET) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at mail.mojserwer.eu Original-Received: from mail.mojserwer.eu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (mail.mojserwer.eu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 0Z_bJaTwam4e; Tue, 6 Mar 2018 21:01:15 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from localhost (static-dwadziewiec-jedenpiec7.echostar.pl [109.232.29.157]) by mail.mojserwer.eu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id B5D67E66FB; Tue, 6 Mar 2018 21:01:14 +0100 (CET) In-reply-to: X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 195.110.48.8 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:223364 Archived-At: On 2018-03-06, at 00:05, Richard Stallman wrote: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > > Personally, I don't think word processing is a good focus for Emacs. > > I want to do my word processing in Emacs, You already can. Quite a few people do this, using Org-mode or AUCTeX. Let me quote the paper about Emacs for TUGboat I mentioned some time ago. I wrote there this: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Emacs, however, is used by many people to edit texts in human languages (as opposed to computer programs), and has really good support for that task. For instance, while many editors have support for movement by words, Emacs has also movement by sentences. Another feature which is a real time-saver is the series of transpose commands: for instance, transpose-chars swaps the two characters on both sides of the point. There is a whole chapter in the Emacs manual describing commands for dealing with text in human languages. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- One thing that might be nice wrt "word processing" would be making yanking insert spaces at the right places. If you have " ipsum" in your kill ring, and press C-y in this context: "Lorem |dolor sit amet" (where the bar means the point), you end up with "Lorem ipsumdolor sit amet" instead of "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet". Obvious, but annoying. (I even wrote some code to fix that and I've been using it for a few weeks now, and I didn't notice any problems.) This is the power of Emacs: the ability to write small extensions, helping users with their needs. I think making that easier (e.g., by providing better documentation) is one of the best things to improve Emacs. Don't get me wrong, Emacs has excellent docs. But if you want to start extending it, you are pretty much limited to Robert Chassell's book, which is great, but way too short and elementary. (Disclaimer: I am working on a "next step" Elisp book.) Best, -- Marcin Borkowski http://mbork.pl