Re: Is Emacs on Aqua crippleware or is it just broken?

[Benjamin Riefenstahl <Benjamin.Riefenstahl@epost.de>]

Hi BK,


bk_usenet@yahoo.co.uk (BK) writes:
> Crippleware is software that has things left out on purpose which
> other versions of the same software have, whether for marketing
> reasons or because the developers haven't had the time yet to
> implement them doesn't really matter.

Sorry, but in my understanding "haven't had the time" != "on purpose"
and "left out" != "not implemented yet."  Also remember that the
"time" about which we are talking is free time that people could just
as spend with family, hobbies or dancing.  You don't have any right to
make any demands on anybody here.

> Just because you get offended by the word crippleware doesn't make
> my post impolite.

Well, if you yourself don't recognise what you are doing, that just
makes things worse.  You either live in a world of your own, or
your're trolling on purpose.

> Benjamin Riefenstahl <Benjamin.Riefenstahl@epost.de> wrote ...
> > Not to mention that a lot of them prefer an Emacs in any usable
> > state instead of not having their favorite tool at all
> 
> Same here, but it has got to be in a "usable state". None of the
> ones I have tried come even close to being usable.

There are lots of people using Emacs on MacOSX quite happily.  "You
don't like it" != "not usable for somebody."

> Everybody says you must have Emacs and ILISP to get an IDE for
> whatever Lisp system you use.  [...]  You can check out the various
> mailing lists, they are full with people who have problems getting
> past Emacs.

These two statements seem to contradict each other.  If people have
problems use Emacs on MacOSX for *any* reason, they won't get
productive with it for OpenMCL or anything.  You may want to complain
to those people recommending Emacs for the wrong audience, not to us.
You also may want to ask *them* which version of Emacs works for them.

> I did read all the docs I could get hold off, but they are written
> for Gnu Emacs

Carbon Emacs *is* GNU Emacs.  If there is something in the docs that
doesn't work as stated, either it's still a todo, or it's a bug in the
program or the docs.

It seems that there is (or was) a misunderstanding here.  There is no
official release of Emacs for MacOSX yet.  MacOSX code is currently
integrated into the official source code, and you can get that code
from CVS.  At some point in time some people have made binaries
available that they compiled themself.

There were a couple of tries to port GNU Emacs to MacOSX before that,
but they all have been abandoned, I think.  So it would not suprise me
if these earlier ports don't work with current versions of MacOSX, or
if they were seriously incomplete.  Still none of them would have been
posted, if they didn't at least work for their authors.

You have already been given the two URLs:

  http://members.shaw.ca/akochoi-emacs/
  http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~franconi/mac-emacs/

I suggest you use them, try the recent binary and come back to us in a
better mood. 


Some other notes in passing:

> > > On a Mac you can just drag a file icon with the mouse onto an
> > > application icon and the application will open the file.

Actually I just checked (I wasn't at my Mac the last time) and this
works fine in the current version.

> > > 2) No Drag and Drop - text snippets
> 
> Well, Alpaca has this in its 0.4 release. Peanuts.

Of course it's peanuts.  Does Alpaca have all the other features that
Emacs has?  A lot of those are also just peanuts.

> No. Ctrl-y (or <C-y> in Emacs lingo) doesn't respond and in the menu
> it is greyed out.

It's probably grayed out, because there is nothing in Emacs' internal
kill-ring currently, which is (to Emacs) the primary source of a
paste.  A reasonable point that, maybe something could be done about
it.

> There is no compromise it things like paste <C-y> and quit <C-x>
> <C-c> don't work out of the box.

I meant compromise about which keys to actually use.  As I already
said, the feature itself works here.

> the application provides a menu that says "Quit" then it should quit
> if your choose "Quit".

I have a menu item in my Emacs at the standard Emacs location that
says "Exit Emacs (C-x C-k)" and it quits the application.  I also have
the Apple-HIG-demanded "Quit Emacs" in another menu that is grayed
out, probably because nobody needed it yet.

> If the implementor doesn't want you to quit from the menu, then why
> put "Quit" in there in the first place?

It may have been put there by the OS e.g., trying to enforce HIG.

> Likewise, if the dock menu says "Quit" then the application must
> quit when you select "Quit".

And it does here. 

> You have ignored the most vital part of my post which said that
> whatever I do, paste just doesn't work, not the Mac way nor the
> Emacs way, nor any other way.

I didn't ignore it, I said that it *does* work here. 

> > > Most of the Emacs keyboard shortcuts don't work.
> > 
> > Not true.
> 
> Ah, you are calling me a liar now?

Sorry, I meant "Not true *here*."

> i have even fired up the old VAX and telneted into the Mac to see
> what /usr/bin/emacs does when remotely accessed from there. No
> keyboard shortcuts work.

On simple terminals a lot of keyboard combinations do not exist as far
as the terminal is concerned.  Sometimes the terminal can be changed
and reconfigured (which often involves both sides, server and client),
sometimes not.  None of that can be helped by Emacs itself, it's
outside of its control.  It is a very well known problem for apps
using a lot of keyboard combinations.  That's the main reason why I
mostly use vi for editing in terminal sessions ;-).

> The least broken build I have is 21.1.30, OSX 10.1.5

I am not sure 10.1 is still supported by the Emacs code, Apple makes
it not easy to do that.

> For most of the keyboard shortcuts it is just deaf, Emacs simply
> ignores them.

I assume that C-h l (or M-x view-lossage) doesn't work either.  If it
did, it would show which events Emacs actually has seen recently.


so long, benny