Re: emacs for everything?

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Floyd L. Davidson <floyd@barrow.com> wrote on Tue, 16 Nov 2004 04:20:48 -0900:
> William Xuuu <william_xuuu@163.com> wrote:
>>hsh@freecode.dk (Henrik S. Hansen) writes:

>>> Mike <mikee@mikee.ath.cx> writes:

>>> Another thing I've wondered about is, do people use Emacs in (primarily)
>>> X or console?

>>> For me it's the console.

>>Me too, :-) The fontify, the fonts, are much much nicer under console
>>than X. And the black background, good for eyes. I do most things
>>within Emacs under console, except interactive bash, and some stuffs
>>that have to be done under X, like viewing pdf, manipulating pictures,
>>web browsing with pictures, etc.

> I simply do not understand the sanity in what you have described!  That
> is a straight jacket!

To you, perhaps.

> Except I'll grant that fonts in X are a problem.  I've spent
> hours and hours finding fonts (for any given screen resolution)
> that provide a nice, readable screen under both (x)emacs and in
> an xterm.

I spent no time whatsoever getting a nice readable font on my console.

> But it is *definitely* worth it.

Not to me, it isn't.

> The "black background, good for eyes" comment is correct, but
> misplaced.  Under X I use goldenrod2 ....

Stop showing off!  ;-)

> .... as the foreground color along with black for the background, and
> it is much like the old "amber" monochrome monitors of years ago.
> Which is to say, even better than white on black, for the eyes!

I use white on black.  If I didn't like that, I'd use (bright) yellow on
black.  Try M-: (list-colors-display) sometime, and tell me how long it
takes, on X, to locate a suitable colour?  On the console, all the
colours are there on the screen at the same time, and the right one is
obvious.

> But what you are missing by using a console is the extreme versatility
> provided by a good window manager under X.

What _you_ are missing on X is the benefit of having Emacs occupying the
_whole_ screen with an optimal font, without distractions from window
borders, mice, scroll-bars, menus, task-bars, wine-bars, tool-bars,
crow-bars, and what ever else glaziers clutter your screen up with.

> Your message headers indicate that you are using Linux, which means you
> have to switch between a console and X with a rather clunky mechanism,
> and have extremely limited use of screen space when in the console.

Extremely limited?  How so?

> What I do, using fvwm2 as a window manager, is set up a desktop manager
> with a 1x15 matrix of virtual desktops.  The desktop manager is on the
> left side of the screen, and is sticky.

Do you wear gloves to protect your fingers?

> Hence I need about 1/8 inch of the left side to be clear in order to
> use it with a mouse (and none of it needs to be clear to use the
> keyboard to switch desktops).

WHAT???? An 1/8 inch of distracting garbage in the place where your eyes
are most likely to be focussing.  UUURRRKKKK!!!!!  I switch between
frames by pressing the keys intended for the purpose, <F1>, <F2>, ....

> At this moment I have 4 web (opera) browsers open in four different
> desktops (all as different users).  I have at least a dozen instances
> of an xterm running in various windows.  At a glance I can see which
> desktop I am in, ......

I don't need to worry about which "desktop" I'm in.  I'm in Emacs.  Full
stop.  Other applications can be reached by <alt><F1>, etc.  I have a
near infinite number of Linux virtual terminals to house those
applications.

> .... and with the click of a mouse I can move to a different one, or I
> can use control-arrow keys to scroll up or down through the list.

You mean, you don't have the control arrow key bindings available in
Emacs?  Yikes, what a broken setup!

> (If at any time I want a window in any desktop moved to the same
> desktop as another window, that is an almost instant operation
> requiring about three clicks of the mouse to do.)

An "instant operation" requiring "about" three clicks of the mouse?
That's a contradiction in terms.  As a console user, I _never_ want my
desktop moved.  It stays where it is, underneath my monitor.

> Consider the effort that you have to go through on a console if
> you want to switch to a web browser.

Yes, <alt>-<F7>.  What a tragically clumsy way to get there.  ;-)

> I can select any of four of them with a single mouse click.

I doubt that very much.  If you have three buttons on your mouse, there
is a choice of, at most, three things you can select "with a single mouse
click".

But what if you only want to look at a single browser at a time?  ;-)

> And I could have them all stacked up in the same desktop in short order
> too, which simply cannot be done on a console.

Yes, thankfully, and that is one very significant advantage of the
console.

> Actually, the description above of where the desktop manager is located
> isn't quite true anymore.  I do use that on a couple of machines, but
> my main workstation has dual head video, with two 17 inch monitors.
> Right now I am in the second down virtual desktop, ....

Consoles don't go down, their technology being mature and stable.

> .... and have xemacs running gnus on the left monitor, using up about
> 95% of the screen.

My Emacs does even better - it uses 100% of the screen.

> On the right monitor is the desktop manager, along with xcalc, xload,
> xsysinfo, a large clock, xmms, 5 buttons for local programs, and an
> xterm that is logged into my firewall.

I've got Emacs on my screen, and _NOTHING_ else.

> Everything on the right monitor is sticky and stays in place regardless
> of which of the 15 desktops I'm in at any given time.

I keep my monitor and keyboard clean, and I can use then without gloves
and without having to wash my hands afterwards.

> All of which is to say that fvwm2 under X is a *far* more versatile
> window manager than emacs is!

Tell me, how much of your time do you spend managing windows, and how
much using Emacs?  None of my time is taken up by managing windows.

> Emacs *is* great though, and if for some reason one is 1) logged in
> remotely or 2) using a simple terminal, (all of which was very commonly
> the case back when the "emacs as a window manager" concept originated)
> then it is *really* nice to have all the facilities of emacs available.

> But using it on a typical system console, with X available, is
> wearing a straight jacket.

All joking aside, you're making the mistake of assuming that everybody
works like you do, and therefore your setup is universally optimal.  This
isn't the case.

It seems that you are an extreme "optical" worker, doing most of your
work with your eyes.  You _need_ everything on your sticky screens at the
same time.  If something isn't currently displayed, you kind of forget
it's there - a bit like a baby up till the age of (?) 6 months.  At a
guess, your manual dexterity probably isn't that well developed, which is
why you find the mouse so attractive.  The mouse has got to be about the
most clunky inefficient device ever invented, at least for anybody with a
modicum of dexterity.

I'm an extreme "manual" worker, doing nearly _all_ my work with my
fingers and brain.  (In my spare time, I play a musical instrument.)  I
can only usefully see one thing at a time on a computer screen, yet I
retain in my brain a copy of where everything is - When using the input
area, for example, I rarely even notice that it's at the bottom of the
screen - my fingers type, my brain retainng an image of what I have just
typed, and my eyes stay focussed on the text I'm working with.
_Anything_ else on the screen is a distraction to me, even things like
scroll-bars.  And dialogue boxes exploding into my face are sheer
purgatory.  For me, Emacs on a console, with shift/control/alt arrow key
combinations bound to movement and scrolling commands is optimal.

Your mileage varies.  So does mine.

> Floyd L. Davidson

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
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