ISO fast-loading Emacs

ISO fast-loading Emacs

[kj]

One feature of my shell (zsh) that I particularly like is the
command edit-command-line, which lets one edit the current command
line in $EDITOR (or $VISUAL).  I'd like to do this with Emacs but
my current version of Emacs takes so long to load that it is not
practical for such on-the-fly editing.

All I need is bare-bones Emacs for this.  It would be nice to also
get syntax highlighting with shell-script-mode, though I'm willing
to sacrifice this for the sake of speed.

What should I put in $EDITOR to achieve the fastest loading Emacs?
Is there an Emacs-lite out there?

Thanks!

kj

-- 
NOTE: In my address everything before the first period is backwards;
and the last period, and everything after it, should be discarded.

Re: ISO fast-loading Emacs

[Floyd L. Davidson]

kj <socyl@987jk.com.invalid> wrote:
>One feature of my shell (zsh) that I particularly like is the
>command edit-command-line, which lets one edit the current command
>line in $EDITOR (or $VISUAL).  I'd like to do this with Emacs but
>my current version of Emacs takes so long to load that it is not
>practical for such on-the-fly editing.
>
>All I need is bare-bones Emacs for this.  It would be nice to also
>get syntax highlighting with shell-script-mode, though I'm willing
>to sacrifice this for the sake of speed.
>
>What should I put in $EDITOR to achieve the fastest loading Emacs?
>Is there an Emacs-lite out there?
>
>Thanks!

There are at least two options, but you may or may not like either of
these:

  1) Use bash instead of zsh, and you can edit the command line
     using emacs (or vi if you so desire) editing commands built
     into the shell.  (Lacking any obvious reason not to, I
     truely do not see why this would not be an solution!)

  2) Use either Emacs or XEmacs in server mode, and set your
     $EDITOR variable to "gnuclient".  It will start virtually
     in an instant.

You'll probably reject the first option out of hand, for
whatever reason it is that you use zsh.  There is no accounting
for (bad) taste, so I won't pester you on that decision.  (You
are free to assume that *I* am the one with bad taste, of
course!)

The second option you might look into a bit, and then decide it
is too complicated, or that your results are not slick enough.
It is *well* worth the effort!  Rather than toss the idea out, I
would suggest that you read up on it, give it a try, and at the
point where things get sticky, post a few questions here and get
help.  I can just about guarantee that once you have it working
you'll *love* it for several reasons, only one of which will be
that it starts fast.

-- 
Floyd L. Davidson            <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)                         floyd@apaflo.com

Re: ISO fast-loading Emacs

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 13.04.2006 um 15:12 schrieb kj:

> What should I put in $EDITOR to achieve the fastest loading Emacs?

-Q -nw

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

"If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."
                               -- Weinberg's Second Law.

Re: ISO fast-loading Emacs

[Stefan Monnier]

>   1) Use bash instead of zsh, and you can edit the command line
>      using emacs (or vi if you so desire) editing commands built
>      into the shell.  (Lacking any obvious reason not to, I
>      truely do not see why this would not be an solution!)

Zsh also provides Emacs-like editing commands (and it used to be
significantly superior to bash's back when I switched from tcsh to zsh;
I don't know how they compare nowadays), so the OP is probably not
interested in this solution.

>   2) Use either Emacs or XEmacs in server mode, and set your
>      $EDITOR variable to "gnuclient".  It will start virtually
>      in an instant.

For Emacs it's called "emacsclient".


        Stefan

Re: ISO fast-loading Emacs

[Marco Gidde]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>   2) Use either Emacs or XEmacs in server mode, and set your
>>      $EDITOR variable to "gnuclient".  It will start virtually
>>      in an instant.
>
> For Emacs it's called "emacsclient".

gnuclient also supports Emacs and at least for Emacs 21.x it has some
more options than emacsclient.


Regards,

Marco

Re: ISO fast-loading Emacs

[rncross]

kj wrote:

> One feature of my shell (zsh) that I particularly like is the
> command edit-command-line, which lets one edit the current command
> line in $EDITOR (or $VISUAL).  I'd like to do this with Emacs but
> my current version of Emacs takes so long to load that it is not
> practical for such on-the-fly editing.
>
> All I need is bare-bones Emacs for this.  It would be nice to also
> get syntax highlighting with shell-script-mode, though I'm willing
> to sacrifice this for the sake of speed.
> What should I put in $EDITOR to achieve the fastest loading Emacs?
> Is there an Emacs-lite out there?
>

Hi,

What I use to speed up my emacs with all my extra packages I use is to
have another 'dumped' version. I have a function that I call with
emacs -batch -l ~/.emacs --funcall rnc_dump_emacs.
That function simply 'requires' my most commonly used code e.g. cc-mode
and then calls dump-emacs: (dump-emacs "emacs-rnc"
"/usr/local/bin/emacs). While this may not be the most elegant or
correct solution :-) it has been working successfully for me with emacs
21.3 for a couple of years. It drops my load time from 8 seconds to
under a second. See also
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/DumpingEmacs

Hope it helps

Nick