Re: Why is Emacs so slow when used remotely?

[Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com>]

Manuel Gómez wrote:
> Bob Proulx escribió:
> > Wow.  That was from two years ago.
> 
> I found the description of my problem while searching for a
> solution. When I found it by my own experimentation I wanted to
> share it with the other possible sufferers. I suspect the original
> poster and I are not the only ones.
> 
> > It may be true that the display code is very inefficient there.  But
> > I don't think it is that reasonable to expect an X program to be
> > snappy fast over a high latency WAN connection.  There are many
> > issues with throwing a display remotely.  Many programs have been
> > written to try to optimize it.  But it remains a hard problem.
> 
> This is the only interaction that it is slow over this connection.
> Once disabled, it runs smoothly.

Then that is probably dramatic enough that it would count as something
to be improved and fixed.

> > Instead I definitely recommend that you try using emacs in text mode.
> > That is the original operation mode.  It is really quite a fine
> > terminal screen editor.  The performance of throwing whold characters
> > over the Internet will be much better than throwing pixels over the
> > Internet.
> 
> I prefer disabling only the mouse-highlight feature. I wouldn't like
> to loose other graphical features when it is not needed.

I use the graphical features with a local emacs.  They are nice.  I am
happy to hear that you have a compromise that works for you.

> But I agree with you that a modern Emacs is also very good in the
> terminal.

This was the sentence that motivated me to reply.  :-)

You included the word "modern" there.  But emacs has been used on
terminals for decades.  An ancient emacs is very good in the terminal!
That is the foundation upon which the graphical version is built upon.
Of course a modern one still works well too.  Not as well as it used
to work.  I have some terminal regressions that have been nagging at
me that I need to report.  And so I would have to say that the older
emacs worked better at the terminal than the modern one.  Though the
modern one is still very good.  In my not so humble opinion your
statement would have been perfect if you hadn't said "modern" there.  :-)

Bob