Re: What does 'run' do in cperl-mode?

[Xah <xahlee@gmail.com>]

On Jul 29, 12:33 pm, Eli Zaretskii <e...@gnu.org> wrote:

> > “Emacs's M-‹key› Notation vs Alt+‹key› Notation”
> >  http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization_meta_key.html
>
> > The main reasons i gave are:
>
> > • Universally understood
>
> So is Meta.

Huh? Are you out of your mind Eli?

this can be easily verified though. Go stand on a street in downtown.
Ask random people on the street “hi. I'm doing a survey. Please check
mark one of the following: □ I know what's a Meta key on computing. □
I know what's Alt key in computing.”


> > • Identical To Key's Label
>
> Only on some keyboards.

Huh? Are you serious or are you joking??

I have a keyboard gallery here:
http://xahlee.org/emacs/keyboards.html

which includes several picts of different PC keyboards.
you can see that they all have a key with Alt printed on them.


> > • Meta is Alt in practice
>
> Only on some keyboards.

Huh? I'm talking about Emacs's default binding for emacs running in
major OSes (Windows, OSX, Linux). On Windows and Linux it's Alt. On
Apple computers in OSX with Apple's keyboard, it's Alt in Aquamac, Cmd
in Carbon Emacs.

What do you mean by “Only on some keyboards.”?

Did you actually read my explanation? «By default on all major OSes in
use (Windows and Linux and OSX), emacs maps its Meta to Alt key. So,
practically speaking, the Meta key is the Alt key. (Aquamacs, perhaps
the most widely used emacs distro on OSX, by default has Alt for
Meta.)»

> > • Keyboards don't have Meta key today
>
> Yes, they do, at least some of them.

Did you read what i wrote? I think i repeated it in this thread at
least 5 times. Here's what i wrote:

«The Meta key was one of the modifier key on obsolete keyboards used
by lisp machines in the 1980s. (for photos and detail, see: Why
Emacs's Keyboard Shortcuts Are Painful)

There is practically no keyboard today that has the Meta key. Sun
Microsystem's keyboard has a key labeled with a diamond “◆”. Sun's
official documentation refers to this key as Meta key. (e.g. search
http://docs.sun.com/ on “Meta key”.) Sun's keyboards have a market
share perhaps less than 0.01%.

For photos and more commentary on Sun's keyboard, see Computer
keyboards Gallery.»

This is posted in the very beginning of the thread.

> > So i consider it more as bug report now i think about it. Why? Because
> > emacs failed to update itself when its keyboard under lisp machines
> > become obsolete.
>
> You have your history wrong: Meta came from old Sun keyboards, where
> it was marked with a diamond.


Are you saying, that the Sun Microsystem's keyboard precedes Lisp
Machine's keyboard?

Do you have any detail, reference at all?


> > As i mentioned, the computing industry changes relative fast.
>
> So is Emacs.  There are hundreds of lines of code that get committed
> each day into the Emacs repository.
>
> > Oh, another point i wanted to make before, was that OpenSource
> > software often takes a 5 to 10 years lag of adopting features from the
> > commercial wold.
>
> With Emacs, it's actually the other way around: it got many features
> waaay before the rest of the world.
>
> > Syntax coloring, for example, i think by 1995 is in every commercial
> > software. (when did it came to emacs?)
>
> In July 1993.
>
> > Mouse support...
>
> 1985
>
> > Font ...
>
> Hard to tell, but looks like 1992 at the latest (I'm quite sure it was
> much earlier, but cannot find evidence in the few free moments I have
> now).
>
> > Unicode ...
>
> 2000
>
> > GUI support ...
>
> 1985
>
> > I'm actually don't have solid historical facts for the above points as
> > i liked...
>
> Oh, but you should, perhaps.  Then you might see that some of your
> opinions have no factual basis at all, as far as Emacs is concerned.
>
> > but anyway i just want to write instead of like doing 10
> > years of research and post 1 article and got overflooded.
>
> No need for that: I looked up the above in less than a minute of
> grepping Emacs ChangeLog files.


Eli, it's not just about words mentioned in changelog files.


> > So back to emacs.... there was CUA mode. I don't know the history of
> > the mode, but it is my guess that mode has been floating out there for
> > quite some time before it is part of emacs. I think there must be huge
> > resistance back then, even today, the use of it is somewhat
> > controversial, and geekers are shy to admit they use it because that
> > somehow makes them “Microsoft Kiddies”.
>
> You are wrong.  As long as a mode is optional, there's normally no
> resistance at all (assuming that it's written cleanly and according to
> Emacs coding style and standards).

So? what is your point?



> > The other point is that if you research the adaption of GUI features
> > or practices in commercial and free software world, you'll see that
> > the free camp is rather slow in 5 to 10 years.
>
> Like I said: get your history right first, then I will perhaps
> consider taking seriously your claims.  For now, it's just bla-bla
> that's not based on anything except itself.
>
> > Emacs in fact is a good example.  Nobody uses it.
>
> Yeah, right.  That'd be a very LARGE nobody.
>
> > lol.
>
> Same here.
>
> > alright, i typed fast. this post is maybe 50 min but now it flies out
> > sans cleanup. I have written much better about all these points
> > actually, but citing my website gets tired and ignored. Better answer
> > question on person to person basis, is what am trying to do.
>
> I hope the ratio of your lines to mine will not be so large next time,
> though, or else I'd need to cut my losses and stop.  I will never have
> enough time even to read everything you managed to dump on me in
> response to just 11 lines.

Let's not start slurs ok?

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄