Re: Is Emacs becoming Word?

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Greg Novak <novak@ucolick.org> writes:

> As a longtime emacs user, I would like to register a complaint about
> the direction of Emacs.  This is probably a cry in the wilderness,
> but here goes:
>
> Starting with Emacs21, the program has been creeping toward becoming
> a WYSIWYG editor, instead of sticking to its roots as a _TEXT_
> editor.

Stallman would be glad to hear it.  He explicitly stated: "I want
Emacs to move in the direction of doing word processing."

> Some of these features are cool and useful: Eg, I use the ability to
> display PNG files in a buffer to look at previews of math I've
> typeset with Latex in the same buffer as the Latex source.  Cool,
> and useful.

Thanks.

> While I'm not against implementing these wacky new feature, I
> request that they remain _off by default_.

Which is what preview-latex does.

> Today when I was editing source code and tried to type pi/2 in a
> buffer, Emacs replaced it with some special character that appeared
> as "1/2" as a single character.

Unlikely.  Let me name a few things that might have happened:

a) you use Leim (C-\) for input of international characters and the
transliteration for ½ is /2.  Leim is not on unless you enable it.  It
should be easy to find an input method that suits your bill better.

b) you use font-lock-mode in LaTeX and write something like ^2, in
which case a subscript 2 appears.  font-lock-mode is not turned on by
default.  Even if you turn it on, you can remove the script
highlighting.

> Needless to say, this is not what I wanted and I find it quite
> offensive that this is happening while editing source code.

Then don't enable the features.

> The other day I was editing Lisp code and found that instead of the
> usual paren highlighting, Emacs was highlighting the entire enclosed
> expression.

I don't get that here.  What did you switch on to get it?

> I've had a long, sometimes rocky, but mostly loving relationship
> with Emacs.  I find these developments troubling.

There is always the NEWS file to get things back.  But they are rarely
on by default.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum