From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Xah Lee Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: line-move-visual Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2010 10:49:08 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <580d5f23-e251-483f-9752-7e77b1ca2fb7@40g2000pry.googlegroups.com> References: <87pr07qjio.fsf@thinkpad.tsdh.de> <878w6vq7ew.fsf@thinkpad.tsdh.de> <871vcmhq79.fsf@wivenhoe.ul.ie> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291827916 23855 80.91.229.12 (8 Dec 2010 17:05:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 17:05:16 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Dec 08 18:05:11 2010 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 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PQNS3-00059V-F7 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:05:11 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:58484 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQNS2-0007KD-NM for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:05:10 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!40g2000pry.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs,comp.lang.lisp Original-Lines: 113 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 76.102.12.87 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1275673748 24191 127.0.0.1 (4 Jun 2010 17:49:08 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2010 17:49:08 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: 40g2000pry.googlegroups.com; posting-host=76.102.12.87; posting-account=bRPKjQoAAACxZsR8_VPXCX27T2YcsyMA User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/533.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/5.0.375.55 Safari/533.4, gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:178641 comp.emacs:99901 comp.lang.lisp:288707 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:75665 Archived-At: On Jun 4, 6:39=C2=A0am, brendan.hal...@ul.ie (Brendan Halpin) wrote: > Attempted thread-jack: why use visual-line-mode instead of > longlines-mode? longlines-mode has serious bugs, i believe still so even i haven't used it since emacs 23.1 a year or 2 ago. basically, whenever large chunk of text is inserted or removed in a buffer (either manually, or sometimes automatically by commands such as patch and version control etc), then the text will be screwed up... missing parts or something i forgot. there are 1 or more bug reports of it in emacs bug track. If i recall correctly, the situation is that it's hard to fix, because longlines- mode was a hack for lack of visual line move, and i think it is done by basically just inserting line-breaks in the background but display and save it otherwise. (i haven't actually looked at the code though) the visual line move feature is a critical feature in emacs. Before emacs 23, there are a few packages or code that tries to introduce the visual line move feature (see emacswiki), and longlines-mode is one of them. However, because it is such a fundamental feature, it is hard for a 3rd-party elisp package to get it correct. They all have major problems... i think Emacs 23.2's move by visual line feature is great because: =E2=80=A2 it fixed a frequently asked feature. (e.g. i think ALL editors/ID= Es after mid 1990s, move by visual line ) =E2=80=A2 it fixed a issue that 3rd party elisp packages cannot address wel= l. Btw, who actually coded the visual line mode? I can't find the info. I like to document it in my emacs pages. -------------------------------------------------- Personally, i find moving by visual line is not just a good feature, but a critical one, with consequences that effect the evolution of language design and thinking, long term. The hard-coded lines is fundamentally introduced by unix and C gang, and brain damaged a whole generation of coders. I've written about 7 essays addressing this point in the past 10 years. See: =E2=80=A2 Xah on Programing Languages http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/comp_lang.html See the articles under the Formatting section. Each of these is written in a different context, but they essentially discuss the same thing. That is, the importance of separating appearance/formatting from semantic or logical structure. Here's a synapses on how each article relates to the line move visual issue. ------------------------------ =E2=80=A2 The Harm of Hard-wrapping Lines http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/hard-wrap.html A introduction. (written as a diatribe ) ------------------------------ =E2=80=A2 Tabs versus Spaces in Source Code http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/tabs_vs_spaces.html introduces the idea as semantic based formatting vs hard-coded formatting. ------------------------------ =E2=80=A2 Plain-Text Email Fetish http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/plain_text.html =E2=80=A2 Unix, RFC, and Line Truncation http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/truncate_line.html Shows some connection of the hard-coded habit from unix. ------------------------------ =E2=80=A2 A Simple Lisp Code Formatter http://xahlee.org/emacs/lisp_formatter.html A example of what actually can happen when hard-coded formatting hasn't become the conventional thought. ------------------------------ =E2=80=A2 A Text Editor Feature: Extend Selection By Semantic Unit http://xahlee.org/emacs/syntax_tree_walk.html Another example of what could happen if unix didn't made people to think about hard-coded short lines. ------------------------------ =E2=80=A2 Fundamental Problems of Lisp http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html Half of the essay, discuss the above issues with respect to lisp the language, and consequences. Xah =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/ =E2=98=84