Emacs 21 or snapshot?

Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Mark Woodward]

Hi all,

As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
or Emacs-snapshot?

I'm using Ubuntu 7.04 and noticed some packages state emacs21 as a
dependency. So not sure if that means they're not compatible with the
snapshot version.

The pipe dream would be a setup something like this:
http://platypope.org/yada/emacs-demo/


thanks,


-- 
Mark

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Tom Rauchenwald]

Mark Woodward <markonlinux@internode.on.net> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
> or Emacs-snapshot?

I would recommend the snapshot package, I have never had any problems
with it. Plus, the gtk-Interface is prettier. (fetch
emacs-snapshot-gtk to use it).  

I do not know how up-to-date the package is in Ubuntu, so having a
look at the Bugs filed against it might be a good idea.

> I'm using Ubuntu 7.04 and noticed some packages state emacs21 as a
> dependency. So not sure if that means they're not compatible with the
> snapshot version.

What packages are this? I'm on Debian, I haven't seen such a package
so far.
BTW., you can install and use both versions without problems. Which
one is used as default can then be configured via update-alternatives

Tom

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Xavier Maillard]

Hi Mark,

   As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
   or Emacs-snapshot?

You'd better stick with the current stable aka GNU Emacs 21.4

   I'm using Ubuntu 7.04 and noticed some packages state emacs21 as a
   dependency. So not sure if that means they're not compatible with the
   snapshot version.

It is unlikely that a working package with 21.x won't work with 22.x

   The pipe dream would be a setup something like this:
   http://platypope.org/yada/emacs-demo/

What is it supposed to show ? It seems it is a Flash© content,
doesn't it ? 

Xavier

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Kevin Rodgers]

Mark Woodward wrote:
> As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
> or Emacs-snapshot?

Install Emacs 22.  I'm not familiar with the GNU/Linux distribution
packages, but I'd recommend the latest pretest version (as of today,
22.0.99) -- whether precompiled or built on your computer -- instead of
an arbitrary CVS snapshot.

> I'm using Ubuntu 7.04 and noticed some packages state emacs21 as a
> dependency. So not sure if that means they're not compatible with the
> snapshot version.
> 
> The pipe dream would be a setup something like this:
> http://platypope.org/yada/emacs-demo/

-- 
Kevin Rodgers
Denver, Colorado, USA

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[David Kastrup]

Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:

> Hi Mark,
>
>    As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
>    or Emacs-snapshot?
>
> You'd better stick with the current stable aka GNU Emacs 21.4

It is so much worse in utf-8 support alone that I wonder what you base
that recommendation on.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Xavier Maillard]

   Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:

   > Hi Mark,
   >
   >    As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
   >    or Emacs-snapshot?
   >
   > You'd better stick with the current stable aka GNU Emacs 21.4

   It is so much worse in utf-8 support alone that I wonder what you base
   that recommendation on.

Snapshot is a development version whereas GNU Emacs 21 is a
*stable* version.

Xavier

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[David Kastrup]

Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:

>    Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:
>
>    > Hi Mark,
>    >
>    >    As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I
>    >    install Emacs 21 or Emacs-snapshot?
>    >
>    > You'd better stick with the current stable aka GNU Emacs 21.4
>
>    It is so much worse in utf-8 support alone that I wonder what you base
>    that recommendation on.
>
> Snapshot is a development version whereas GNU Emacs 21 is a
> *stable* version.

Which does not change the fact that the snapshots have been quite
better and more solid than the "stable" version for years now.  In
particular now that snapshots are released as "pretest" releases.

Can you point to any area, even a single one, where the supposed
"stability" of Emacs 21.4 leads to better results than, say, the
pretest 22.0.99?

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Xavier Maillard]

   Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:

   >    Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:
   >
   >    > Hi Mark,
   >    >
   >    >    As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I
   >    >    install Emacs 21 or Emacs-snapshot?
   >    >
   >    > You'd better stick with the current stable aka GNU Emacs 21.4
   >
   >    It is so much worse in utf-8 support alone that I wonder what you base
   >    that recommendation on.
   >
   > Snapshot is a development version whereas GNU Emacs 21 is a
   > *stable* version.

   Which does not change the fact that the snapshots have been quite
   better and more solid than the "stable" version for years now.  In
   particular now that snapshots are released as "pretest" releases.

For a newbie, I do not see any benefit in Pre-testing a piece of
software he does not know at all. Though I concede pretest
and/or even the CVS version are really good for experienced users
or people with already some GNU Emacs basics.

   Can you point to any area, even a single one, where the
   supposed "stability" of Emacs 21.4 leads to better results
   than, say, the pretest 22.0.99?

I won't be able to do that since I never ever had a problem with
GNU Emacs 21.x on a GNU/linux platform. Things are quite
different on Hurd though.

Xavier

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[David Kastrup]

Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:

>    Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:
>
>    > Snapshot is a development version whereas GNU Emacs 21 is a
>    > *stable* version.
>
>    Which does not change the fact that the snapshots have been quite
>    better and more solid than the "stable" version for years now.  In
>    particular now that snapshots are released as "pretest" releases.
>
> For a newbie, I do not see any benefit in Pre-testing a piece of
> software he does not know at all.

Because it works much better?

> Though I concede pretest and/or even the CVS version are really good
> for experienced users or people with already some GNU Emacs basics.

Have you actually _tried_?  There have been literally years of
discussions and fights over usability features and approaches.  The
deciding advantage of Emacs 22 over Emacs 21 is not a particular
technical feature, but rather a vast improvement all over the board,
partly specially catering for new users.

>    Can you point to any area, even a single one, where the supposed
>    "stability" of Emacs 21.4 leads to better results than, say, the
>    pretest 22.0.99?
>
> I won't be able to do that since I never ever had a problem with GNU
> Emacs 21.x on a GNU/linux platform.

Then you are not seriously using it.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Xavier Maillard]

Hi,

   > Though I concede pretest and/or even the CVS version are really good
   > for experienced users or people with already some GNU Emacs basics.

   Have you actually _tried_?

Actually I am running GNU Emacs 23.x for months now and before
that, I was using GNU Emacs 22.x so yes.

   >    Can you point to any area, even a single one, where the supposed
   >    "stability" of Emacs 21.4 leads to better results than, say, the
   >    pretest 22.0.99?
   >
   > I won't be able to do that since I never ever had a problem with GNU
   > Emacs 21.x on a GNU/linux platform.

   Then you are not seriously using it.

What's your problem exactly ? I am using GNU Emacs for all sort
of stuff going from source code editing to listening to music so
I am a hard long-term GNU Emacs user and I *do really* use it
very seriously. And yes, I keep on saying that GNU Emacs 21.x is
really stable and I never encountered any troubles. 

If I was not coding modes/packages for GNU Emacs, I would have
probably sticked to GNU Emacs 21.x, for sure.

	Xavier
-- 
http://www.gnu.org
http://www.april.org
http://www.lolica.org

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Maciej Katafiasz]

Den Sat, 12 May 2007 08:31:25 +0200 skrev Xavier Maillard:

> If I was not coding modes/packages for GNU Emacs, I would have
> probably sticked to GNU Emacs 21.x, for sure.

Using Emacs 21.x now is simply silly. With 22 being almost there, it's as
much, or more stable than 21.x, and it has *tons* of overall improvements,
from small things like better default keybindings to wholly new modes like
CUA and GDBA being integrated into stock Emacs, vastly better Unicode
support (you no longer need mule-ucs for it to work reliably) and prettier
looks (with GTK+ 2). Whatever your arguments are, they simply don't hold
water for anyone who isn't tied to 21.x by specific package compatibility
issues.

Cheers.
Maciej

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Will Parsons]

Maciej Katafiasz wrote:
> Den Sat, 12 May 2007 08:31:25 +0200 skrev Xavier Maillard:
> 
>> If I was not coding modes/packages for GNU Emacs, I would have
>> probably sticked to GNU Emacs 21.x, for sure.
> 
> Using Emacs 21.x now is simply silly. With 22 being almost there, it's as
> much, or more stable than 21.x, and it has *tons* of overall improvements,

So, you didn't see my response to another post in this thread, mentioning
that I'm having problems editing remote files with the current Emacs 22 on
Windows?  No doubt there is a solution a solution to this, but no, using
Emacs 21 is *not* "simply silly".  Apart from that, Emacs 21 is still the
version I get with two other systems I regularly work on - FreeBSD and
Debian GNU/Linux.  (Debian Etch - just recently sanctioned as the new
"stable" Debian - of course comes with the "stable" version of Emacs -
version 21.)

> from small things like better default keybindings to wholly new modes like
> CUA and GDBA being integrated into stock Emacs, vastly better Unicode
> support (you no longer need mule-ucs for it to work reliably) and prettier
> looks (with GTK+ 2). Whatever your arguments are, they simply don't hold
> water for anyone who isn't tied to 21.x by specific package compatibility
> issues.

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[David Kastrup]

wbp@nodomain.invalid (Will Parsons) writes:

> Maciej Katafiasz wrote:
>> Den Sat, 12 May 2007 08:31:25 +0200 skrev Xavier Maillard:
>> 
>>> If I was not coding modes/packages for GNU Emacs, I would have
>>> probably sticked to GNU Emacs 21.x, for sure.
>> 
>> Using Emacs 21.x now is simply silly. With 22 being almost there, it's as
>> much, or more stable than 21.x, and it has *tons* of overall improvements,
>
> So, you didn't see my response to another post in this thread, mentioning
> that I'm having problems editing remote files with the current Emacs 22 on
> Windows?

Then, for heaven's sake, file a bug report.

M-x report-emacs-bug RET

Or you will have the same problem with a _released_ version of Emacs
later.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Will Parsons]

David Kastrup wrote:
> 
> Then, for heaven's sake, file a bug report.
> 
> M-x report-emacs-bug RET
> 
> Or you will have the same problem with a _released_ version of Emacs
> later.
> 
OK - I have done so.  Despite the best efforts of the Emacs maintainers
it was suprisingly hard to do so.  Since I am working on Corporate WinXP
machine where the only officially sanctioned method of sending e-mail is
Lotus Notes, it was in fact a non-trivial task to figure out how to send
e-mail using Emacs.  (But I did, and feel the better for it.)

- Will

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 15.05.2007 um 20:26 schrieb Will Parsons:

> OK - I have done so.  Despite the best efforts of the Emacs  
> maintainers
> it was suprisingly hard to do so.  Since I am working on Corporate  
> WinXP
> machine where the only officially sanctioned method of sending e- 
> mail is
> Lotus Notes, it was in fact a non-trivial task to figure out how to  
> send
> e-mail using Emacs.

I am simply copying and pasting from GNU Emacs to Apple's Mail – is  
this so different with Lotus? Has it some Lotus effect (nothing  
sticks on the surface)?

--
Greetings

   Pete

Got Mole problems?
Call Avogadro 6.02 x 10^23

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Will Parsons wrote:
> David Kastrup wrote:
>> Then, for heaven's sake, file a bug report.
>>
>> M-x report-emacs-bug RET
>>
>> Or you will have the same problem with a _released_ version of Emacs
>> later.
>>
> OK - I have done so.  Despite the best efforts of the Emacs maintainers
> it was suprisingly hard to do so.  Since I am working on Corporate WinXP
> machine where the only officially sanctioned method of sending e-mail is
> Lotus Notes, it was in fact a non-trivial task to figure out how to send
> e-mail using Emacs.  (But I did, and feel the better for it.)

Could you please explain why it was difficult to send the bug report 
mail message?

What should happen when you try to send the bug report in Emacs 22 is 
that the default Windows mailclient get called.

What happens if you click on mail links in your web browser? Does the 
default mailclient open up then?

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 12 May 2007 18:51:24 GMT, wbp@nodomain.invalid (Will Parsons) wrote:
>Maciej Katafiasz wrote:
>>Den Sat, 12 May 2007 08:31:25 +0200 skrev Xavier Maillard:
>>> If I was not coding modes/packages for GNU Emacs, I would have
>>> probably sticked to GNU Emacs 21.x, for sure.
>> 
>> Using Emacs 21.x now is simply silly. With 22 being almost there, it's as
>> much, or more stable than 21.x, and it has *tons* of overall improvements,
>
> So, you didn't see my response to another post in this thread,
> mentioning that I'm having problems editing remote files with the
> current Emacs 22 on Windows?  No doubt there is a solution a solution
> to this, but no, using Emacs 21 is *not* "simply silly".  Apart from
> that, Emacs 21 is still the version I get with two other systems I
> regularly work on - FreeBSD and Debian GNU/Linux.  (Debian Etch - just
> recently sanctioned as the new "stable" Debian - of course comes with
> the "stable" version of Emacs - version 21.)

FWIW, FreeBSD now includes an editors/emacs-devel port with the most
recent pretest tarball of Emacs 22.

I'm trying to test many of the packages I regularly use, but I can't
install *all* the Emacs extras on my laptop, so if you find the time to
test the editors/emacs-devel port, please do test it.

If there are problems with the FreeBSD Ports version of Emacs 22, please
report them.  Your comments, bug reports, suggestions and any help you
can give with the integration of Emacs 22 into FreeBSD are going to be
invaluable in making sure that the package/port reaches a stable state.
This way, when Emacs 22 becomes the officially released version of GNU
Emacs, we will be in a good shape for making the current
editors/emacs-devel port the _default_ Emacs port on FreeBSD too :)

- Giorgos

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Will Parsons]

Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> On 12 May 2007 18:51:24 GMT, wbp@nodomain.invalid (Will Parsons) wrote:
>>Maciej Katafiasz wrote:
>>>Den Sat, 12 May 2007 08:31:25 +0200 skrev Xavier Maillard:
>>>> If I was not coding modes/packages for GNU Emacs, I would have
>>>> probably sticked to GNU Emacs 21.x, for sure.
>>> 
>>> Using Emacs 21.x now is simply silly. With 22 being almost there, it's as
>>> much, or more stable than 21.x, and it has *tons* of overall improvements,
>>
>> So, you didn't see my response to another post in this thread,
>> mentioning that I'm having problems editing remote files with the
>> current Emacs 22 on Windows?  No doubt there is a solution a solution
>> to this, but no, using Emacs 21 is *not* "simply silly".  Apart from
>> that, Emacs 21 is still the version I get with two other systems I
>> regularly work on - FreeBSD and Debian GNU/Linux.  (Debian Etch - just
>> recently sanctioned as the new "stable" Debian - of course comes with
>> the "stable" version of Emacs - version 21.)
> 
> FWIW, FreeBSD now includes an editors/emacs-devel port with the most
> recent pretest tarball of Emacs 22.
> 
> I'm trying to test many of the packages I regularly use, but I can't
> install *all* the Emacs extras on my laptop, so if you find the time to
> test the editors/emacs-devel port, please do test it.
> 
> If there are problems with the FreeBSD Ports version of Emacs 22, please
> report them.  Your comments, bug reports, suggestions and any help you
> can give with the integration of Emacs 22 into FreeBSD are going to be
> invaluable in making sure that the package/port reaches a stable state.
> This way, when Emacs 22 becomes the officially released version of GNU
> Emacs, we will be in a good shape for making the current
> editors/emacs-devel port the _default_ Emacs port on FreeBSD too :)

I will do so.  Note that the specific problem I experienced on Windows is
with editing remote files, and that because I seldom do this on Unix-type
platforms (except via NFS), I am unlikely to notice any problems in the
area.

- Will

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 15 May 2007 18:33:29 GMT, wbp@nodomain.invalid (Will Parsons) wrote:
> Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>> FWIW, FreeBSD now includes an editors/emacs-devel port with the most
>> recent pretest tarball of Emacs 22.
>> 
>> I'm trying to test many of the packages I regularly use, but I can't
>> install *all* the Emacs extras on my laptop, so if you find the time to
>> test the editors/emacs-devel port, please do test it.
>> 
>> If there are problems with the FreeBSD Ports version of Emacs 22, please
>> report them.  Your comments, bug reports, suggestions and any help you
>> can give with the integration of Emacs 22 into FreeBSD are going to be
>> invaluable in making sure that the package/port reaches a stable state.
>> This way, when Emacs 22 becomes the officially released version of GNU
>> Emacs, we will be in a good shape for making the current
>> editors/emacs-devel port the _default_ Emacs port on FreeBSD too :)
>
> I will do so.  Note that the specific problem I experienced on Windows is
> with editing remote files, and that because I seldom do this on Unix-type
> platforms (except via NFS), I am unlikely to notice any problems in the
> area.

Ok, thanks :)

If you do find problems, MAINTAINER= should list my email address (the
same as this post), so just drop me a note and I'll either handle it
through email or guide you through the process of opening a bug report
in our issue tracking system.

- Giorgos

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[David Kastrup]

Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:

>    > Though I concede pretest and/or even the CVS version are really good
>    > for experienced users or people with already some GNU Emacs basics.
>
>    Have you actually _tried_?
>
> Actually I am running GNU Emacs 23.x for months now and before
> that, I was using GNU Emacs 22.x so yes.

I was not talking about the unicode-2 branch (there are actually
several not-yet-merged branches around sporting a suggestive 23.x
number, so it is not clear what exactly you may be talking about).

>    >    Can you point to any area, even a single one, where the supposed
>    >    "stability" of Emacs 21.4 leads to better results than, say, the
>    >    pretest 22.0.99?
>    >
>    > I won't be able to do that since I never ever had a problem with GNU
>    > Emacs 21.x on a GNU/linux platform.
>
>    Then you are not seriously using it.
>
> What's your problem exactly ? I am using GNU Emacs for all sort
> of stuff going from source code editing to listening to music so
> I am a hard long-term GNU Emacs user and I *do really* use it
> very seriously. And yes, I keep on saying that GNU Emacs 21.x is
> really stable and I never encountered any troubles.

Cut&Paste from other applications gets very problematic as soon as you
are leaving the latin-1 realm.  utf-8 (and other encodings) are not
detected reliably.  Unification of latin characters does not work out
of the box, so when you are editing files from different origins (very
common when replying to mail), the results get inconsistent, and
search and replace also gets confused.  That's one big shortcoming.

There are quite a few additions for new users: new default settings,
language-specific tutorials offered as help.  Emacs has full-quality
support for Windows and MacOSX Carbon, also for Gtk+.  The Emacs Lisp
Reference manual is included, as is an Elisp tutorial.  Files with a
size of 256MB can now be edited.

+++
** M-g is now a prefix key.
M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.

Temporary transient mark mode makes it possible to work with "active
region" commands without having to enable transient-mark mode.  This
is particularly relevant in connection with mouse selections: you can,
for example, mark a region with the mouse and an immediately following
query-replace operation will be confined to that area.

Mouse wheels work out of the box.

** When Emacs prompts for file names, SPC no longer completes the file name.
This is so filenames with embedded spaces could be input without the
need to quote the space with a C-q.

** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.

Auto compression mode is now the default.

Font lock mode is now enabled by default.

*** The new file-name-shadow-mode is turned ON by default, so that when
entering a file name, any prefix which Emacs will ignore is dimmed.

And so forth and so on: wagonloads of usability improvements have been
placed into Emacs, and those are likely even more important to the
beginner rather than the experienced user.

> If I was not coding modes/packages for GNU Emacs, I would have
> probably sticked to GNU Emacs 21.x, for sure.

So why would that require you to switch to non-released Emacs
versions?

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Will Parsons wrote:

> The problem is
> that I use Emacs on my Windows machine to remotely edit files on other
> systems using ange-ftp or (on Emacs 22) tramp.  There is a noticeable lag
> after saving a remote file under Emacs 22.  It appears that that file is
> transferred to the remote system quickly enough, since I can see it on the
> remote system shortly after saving it in Emacs, but Emacs seems to hang for
> a "long" period (I haven't actually measured it - probably several 
> minutes), in which time Emacs doesn't update or receive input.

I wonder if this is the same problem that I have seen before. I had some 
problems like this and I therefore patched Emacs a bit to avoid them. I 
am not sure at all, but I use tramp (with ftp) very often without any 
problems with the patched version of Emacs+EmacsW32.

The patched was deemed too bad to go into Emacs however.

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Will Parsons]

Lennart Borgman (gmail) wrote:
> Will Parsons wrote:
> 
>> The problem is
>> that I use Emacs on my Windows machine to remotely edit files on other
>> systems using ange-ftp or (on Emacs 22) tramp.  There is a noticeable lag
>> after saving a remote file under Emacs 22.  It appears that that file is
>> transferred to the remote system quickly enough, since I can see it on the
>> remote system shortly after saving it in Emacs, but Emacs seems to hang for
>> a "long" period (I haven't actually measured it - probably several 
>> minutes), in which time Emacs doesn't update or receive input.
> 
> I wonder if this is the same problem that I have seen before. I had some 
> problems like this and I therefore patched Emacs a bit to avoid them. I 
> am not sure at all, but I use tramp (with ftp) very often without any 
> problems with the patched version of Emacs+EmacsW32.
> 
> The patched was deemed too bad to go into Emacs however.

I tried out your patched version, but it seems to react the same - the
file is saved to the remote system very quickly, but Emacs becomes
unresponsive for a couple of minutes after.  (This is using tramp with ftp.)
I'll play around some more with it.  If you have any suggestions on any
settings to look at that might be relevant, I'd be interested.

- Will

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Stefan Monnier]

> I tried out your patched version, but it seems to react the same - the
> file is saved to the remote system very quickly, but Emacs becomes
> unresponsive for a couple of minutes after.  (This is using tramp with ftp.)
> I'll play around some more with it.  If you have any suggestions on any
> settings to look at that might be relevant, I'd be interested.

When Emacs is non-responsive, there are always the same things to look at:
1 - is it fully unresponsive: i.e. does C-g break out of the hang?
2 - if C-g breaks out of it, what backtrace does it give, if you set
    Options -> Enter Debugger on Quit?
3 - If C-g doesn't help, run Emacs under a debugger and while it's frozen,
    interrupt the program from the debugger and check the backtrace (and do
    that repeatedly a few times, comparing the various backtraces you get,
    so as to determine at while level of the backtrace is the looping
    happening).


-- Stefan

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Will Parsons]

Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> I tried out your patched version, but it seems to react the same - the
>> file is saved to the remote system very quickly, but Emacs becomes
>> unresponsive for a couple of minutes after.  (This is using tramp with ftp.)
>> I'll play around some more with it.  If you have any suggestions on any
>> settings to look at that might be relevant, I'd be interested.
> 
> When Emacs is non-responsive, there are always the same things to look at:
> 1 - is it fully unresponsive: i.e. does C-g break out of the hang?
> 2 - if C-g breaks out of it, what backtrace does it give, if you set
>     Options -> Enter Debugger on Quit?

Well, it never occurred to me to try C-g, but it does indeed break out of
the hang.  The backtrace doesn't enlighten me any, but in case it is
suggestive to someone more knowledgeable, I'm including it (uuencoded
since it seems to contain control characters).
-----------------------------------------
begin 644 backtrace.txt
M1&5B=6=G97(@96YT97)E9"TM3&ES<"!E<G)O<CH@*'%U:70I#0H@('-I9VYA
M;"AQ=6ET(&YI;"D-"B`@8GET92UC;V1E*"+!""&(PL/$7"*'(B!;<')O8R!D
M96QE=&4M<')O8V5S<R!S:6=N86P@<75I="!N:6Q=(#,I#0H@(&%N9V4M9G1P
M+7=A:70M;F]T+6)U<WDH(SQP<F]C97-S("IF='`@=V)P0&]A:RH^*0T*("!A
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`
end
-----------------------------------------
> 3 - If C-g doesn't help, run Emacs under a debugger and while it's frozen,
>     interrupt the program from the debugger and check the backtrace (and do
>     that repeatedly a few times, comparing the various backtraces you get,
>     so as to determine at while level of the backtrace is the looping
>     happening).

Thanks for the suggestions,
 - Will

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Stefan Monnier]

> unresponsive for a couple of minutes after.  (This is using tramp with ftp.)

I.e. you're actually using ange-ftp (via Tramp).
Which `ftp' executable are you using?


        Stefan

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Will Parsons]

Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> unresponsive for a couple of minutes after.  (This is using tramp with ftp.)
> 
> I.e. you're actually using ange-ftp (via Tramp).
> Which `ftp' executable are you using?

The regular one that comes with Windows XP.

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Hadron]

Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:

>    Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:
>
>    > Hi Mark,
>    >
>    >    As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
>    >    or Emacs-snapshot?
>    >
>    > You'd better stick with the current stable aka GNU Emacs 21.4
>
>    It is so much worse in utf-8 support alone that I wonder what you base
>    that recommendation on.
>
> Snapshot is a development version whereas GNU Emacs 21 is a
> *stable* version.

So?

It's not like the snapshot is falling over every 3 seconds.

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Sebastian Tennant]

Quoth Hadron <hadronquark@gmail.com>:
> Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:
>
>>    Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:
>>
>>    > Hi Mark,
>>    >
>>    >    As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
>>    >    or Emacs-snapshot?
>>    >
>>    > You'd better stick with the current stable aka GNU Emacs 21.4
>>
>>    It is so much worse in utf-8 support alone that I wonder what you base
>>    that recommendation on.
>>
>> Snapshot is a development version whereas GNU Emacs 21 is a
>> *stable* version.
>
> So?
>
> It's not like the snapshot is falling over every 3 seconds.

I can second that, snapshot is incredibly stable for a development
version.  I've been using it for months (for the aforementioned UTF
support) without a single noticeable hitch.

As for the 21.4 versus snapshot debate, I believe I'm right in saying
that a stable version needs to be installed before snapshot can be
installed.

On my Debian box at any rate, both are installed and I can choose to
run whichever I like, or both simultaneously or...  you get the point.

In short, install them both, but use snapshot.  It works perfectly as
far as I can tell, so why not use it?

Sebastian

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[David Kastrup]

Sebastian Tennant <sebyte@smolny.plus.com> writes:

> As for the 21.4 versus snapshot debate, I believe I'm right in
> saying that a stable version needs to be installed before snapshot
> can be installed.

You are mistaken.  And even if you weren't: Debian's package system
would have sorted it out.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Xavier Maillard]

   Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:

   >    Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:
   >
   >    > Hi Mark,
   >    >
   >    >    As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
   >    >    or Emacs-snapshot?
   >    >
   >    > You'd better stick with the current stable aka GNU Emacs 21.4
   >
   >    It is so much worse in utf-8 support alone that I wonder what you base
   >    that recommendation on.
   >
   > Snapshot is a development version whereas GNU Emacs 21 is a
   > *stable* version.

   So?

   It's not like the snapshot is falling over every 3 seconds.

What is a snapshot then ? When I was using Debian GNU/linux,
there was one snapshot per week.

Xavier

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Hadron]

Xavier Maillard <xma@gnu.org> writes:

> Hi Mark,
>
>    As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
>    or Emacs-snapshot?
>
> You'd better stick with the current stable aka GNU Emacs 21.4

No. Too many third party "add ons" don't work with it. I would recommend 22 any
day. especially the emacs-snapshot if it is available for his system.


>
>    I'm using Ubuntu 7.04 and noticed some packages state emacs21 as a
>    dependency. So not sure if that means they're not compatible with the
>    snapshot version.
>
> It is unlikely that a working package with 21.x won't work with 22.x

Not my experience with programming utilities.

Re: Emacs 21 or snapshot?

[Mark Woodward]

Thanks all,

On Wed, 02 May 2007 12:15:53 +0000, Mark Woodward wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> As someone wishing to learn Emacs would you recommend I install Emacs 21
> or Emacs-snapshot?
> 
> I'm using Ubuntu 7.04 and noticed some packages state emacs21 as a
> dependency. So not sure if that means they're not compatible with the
> snapshot version.
> 
> The pipe dream would be a setup something like this:
> http://platypope.org/yada/emacs-demo/
> 
> 
> thanks,
> 
>

Installed snapshot from the fiesty repositories for now.
Now just have to learn how to use it ;-)

PS - Xavier, the link shows a screencast of Emacs set up to handle Ruby
code in a way I'd like to get it eventually. He explains how he's done it
on another page, but that might have to wait ATM. As long as I can get
used to the basics for now, I'll peck away at it after the Uni semester.


thanks again,


-- 
Mark