From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: jump between if-fi Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:18:27 +0000 Message-ID: <20080101141827.GA3830@muc.de> References: <87y7bbpz12.fsf@newsguy.com> <20071231162438.GA1211@muc.de> <87wsqujn1z.fsf@newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1199196633 6244 80.91.229.12 (1 Jan 2008 14:10:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:10:33 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org To: reader@newsguy.com Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jan 01 15:10:47 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1J9hpN-0004aM-CC for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:10:46 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9hoy-0001YO-3A for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:10:20 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9hof-0001Va-BM for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:10:01 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9hod-0001SC-50 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:10:00 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9hoc-0001S4-OS for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:09:58 -0500 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1] helo=mail.muc.de) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1J9hob-0002IT-F0 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:09:58 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 247 invoked by uid 3782); 1 Jan 2008 14:09:43 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p57AF58EF.dip.t-dialin.net [87.175.88.239]) by colin2.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:09:36 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 4292 invoked by uid 1000); 1 Jan 2008 14:18:27 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87wsqujn1z.fsf@newsguy.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.5 (Fettercairn) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: FreeBSD 4.6-4.9 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:50411 Archived-At: Hi again, and Happy New Year, Reader! On Mon, Dec 31, 2007 at 08:29:28PM -0600, reader@newsguy.com wrote: > Alan Mackenzie writes: > > This is a moderately difficult exercise in Elisp programming. I > > would suggest something like this: > He-he... whats moderate for you appears to be clear over the top for me. Don't underestimate yourself. After all, you've mastered shell script. > [...] snipped a very nice outline of how to go at it. > > When you've got it working, please submit it to Emacs for inclusion > > in Emacs 23! Best of luck! > Yes that would be very nice but is also very unlikely. My skill level > would have to be improved several hundred percentage points in a pretty > short while. Indeed. Where's the problem with that? The Emacs documentation (including that for Emac Lisp) is sensationally good, and there's as much help as you need on the net. For functionality this useful, I'd happily help you by personal email, even several times a week. This is an ideal problem for getting into heavy elisping - it goes to the core of Emacs, with hooks, text-properties/overlays, textual analysis with regular expressions - yet it is tightly enough defined that you won't just drift into an endless maze of discouraging vagueness and complexity. After implementing this, you would be welcomed with open arms by the core Emacs team. So, how long would all this take? Several weeks, assuming ~15-30 hours hacking time per week. > I guess not too many emacs developers really do much shell scripting. > Probably using a lot more high level scripting languages (perl, lisp, > python and etc). I run into portability problems more with shell > scripts since something like perl is the same everywhere. I would think most Emacsers write shell scripts reasonably fluently. Lisp isn't really suited for the job, and p{erl,ython} seem over complicated. In my humble opinion, of course. ;-) > My perl is coming along well enough to use it for all scripting but I > still have many older shell scripts I'd hate to have to convert. So, why convert them? [ .... ] -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany)