From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. Chassell" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2006 13:55:21 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: <17738.51001.873691.634941@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1162562263 9883 80.91.229.2 (3 Nov 2006 13:57:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2006 13:57:43 +0000 (UTC) Cc: bob@rattlesnake.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Nov 03 14:57:38 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GfzWW-0001Zm-0v for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 03 Nov 2006 14:55:59 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GfzWV-0006KB-Gr for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:55:55 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1GfzWD-0006AK-Lo for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:55:38 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1GfzW8-00060f-AS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:55:37 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GfzW8-00060I-5i for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:55:32 -0500 Original-Received: from [69.205.32.54] (helo=rattlesnake.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1GfzW8-0000Ln-3j for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:55:32 -0500 Original-Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.115) Fri, 3 Nov 2006 13:55:21 +0000 (UTC) Original-To: raman@users.sourceforge.net In-reply-to: <17738.51001.873691.634941@gargle.gargle.HOWL> (raman@users.sourceforge.net) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:61697 Archived-At: For your next revision, it would be nice to add a short section on advice. No. When readers make worth while additions they should go into the GNU Emacs sources. Only great programmers can start a new thread, as you did. Most programmers are not great, nor are the expressions they write. As (elisp)Advising Functions says Advising a function can cause confusion in debugging ... if you have the possibility ... run a hook ... ... a file in Emacs should not put advice on a function ... Over the next decade or two, I expect that more and more otherwise sighted people will want to listen to their email and the like. They will be using mobile telephones or driving their cars. (Certainly, the rest of us do not want a car driver to look at a computer screen; we want him to keep his eyes on the road!) Over time, a large number of people will see themselves as `situationally blind' and see that a solution is to listen. Text to speech synthesizers were developed for the permanently blind but they work as well for the situationally blind. It makes sense that `all core Emacs functionality ... speak intelligently' as you wrote in `emacspeak/lisp/emacspeak-advice.el'. After all, speech is another output format. And while the interface is somewhat like an Emacs for the sighted, but without a windowing system, it is also truly different, as you say. I wish Emacspeak were within the GNU Emacs sources. Then sighted developers would remember it as they do the current output formats, the virtual consoles without different textual faces and the windowing systems with. Moreover, even the sighted who do not know about Emacspeak could learn of it and find it installed. It could be called inside Emacs as a speech mode, as an emacspeak mode, or called outside Emacs, that is to say, started, as a program. But I doubt it is possible to incorporate Emacspeak into GNU Emacs. For one, GNU Emacs is not released frequently, so for most people Emacspeak would not get updated. My brother-in-law, for example, is using GNU Emacs 21, which was released in 2001. (It would make sense to release more frequently a program named Emacspeak that has the appropriate GNU Emacs in it ...) Also, I fear too many functions were written with advice and won't be changed. In addition, you may not have kept proper legal papers for Emacspeak. I don't know. Without them, it would be easy for enemies of free software to threaten obvious costs and thereby hinder distribution among corporations in countries with strong court systems. GNU Emacs and RMS are sufficiently visible that this could happen. Other distributions are less visible, so no one cares -- a case of "security through obscurity" succeeding with humans. A lack of proper legal papers might prevent re-written Emacspeak files from entering GNU Emacs sources. So, I suspect this is an example of the good, Emacspeak and GNU Emacs being separate, being an enemy of the better, namely Emacspeak being incorporated formally into GNU Emacs. -- Robert J. Chassell GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 bob@rattlesnake.com bob@gnu.org http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc