* What about "The Modernization of Emacs"? @ 2007-12-20 15:13 Sean Ochoa 2007-12-20 22:44 ` Lennart Borgman (gmail) ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Sean Ochoa @ 2007-12-20 15:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: bug-gnu-emacs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 290 bytes --] What do the maintainers have to say about this article, "The Modernization of Emacs" (http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html)? I find myself in the very same boat as he's describing. Its a good thing that I have geeky friends who already use emacs to show me the ropes. - Sean Ochoa [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 383 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: What about "The Modernization of Emacs"? 2007-12-20 15:13 What about "The Modernization of Emacs"? Sean Ochoa @ 2007-12-20 22:44 ` Lennart Borgman (gmail) 2007-12-21 9:21 ` David Reitter 2007-12-21 19:49 ` Richard Stallman 2007-12-21 16:21 ` Eli Zaretskii 2007-12-21 16:33 ` Shawn Boyette ☠ 2 siblings, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Lennart Borgman (gmail) @ 2007-12-20 22:44 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sean Ochoa; +Cc: bug-gnu-emacs Sean Ochoa wrote: > What do the maintainers have to say about this article, "The > Modernization of Emacs" (http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html)? I > find myself in the very same boat as he's describing. Its a good thing > that I have geeky friends who already use emacs to show me the ropes. > > - Sean Ochoa Here are some comments: ;; Simple UI Changes ;; ;; * Have cua-mode on by default. Maybe a simple way to turn on platform like features instead? There could be "platforms" like: - Emacs default - GNU/Linux - w32 ;; * Have Syntax Highlighting on by default. It is from Emacs 22. ;; * Change the undo behavior so that there is a Undo and ;; Redo. I hardly notice (since I use Viper), but it sounds useful. Of course you can do redo with the undo command, but it is hard for a beginner. There is a undo-only command, why not also have a redo-only command? ;; * Get rid of the “*scratch*” buffer. This has been discussed on the devel list. Please look at the discussion there. ;; * Make longlines-mode the default editor behavior for any ;; file. (So that, the up arrow and down arrow keys moves ;; the cursor by a visual line, not by line-return ;; character. I think this deserves some thought. By default Emacs wraps long lines. This is not the same as longlines-mode. I think it would be useful to be able to use down/up arrows to move to the next/previous visual line. I believe this might be what beginners expect. (Maybe there is already such an option in Emacs?) ;; Documentation Changes (for the User Documentation of ;; Emacs (not Emacs Lisp Doc)) ;; ;; * Change the terminology of “Meta key” to “Alt key” I would say no. They are not the same. I do not use the Alt key for Emacs META key. I would say make the explanation of this more visible instead. It is already mentioned in for example M-: (info "(emacs) Windows Keyboard") but it could perhaps be in a section of its own since it is such an important detail. ;; replace the abbreviations C-«key» and M-«key» by ;; Ctrl+«key» and Alt+«key». Why? Is that really so difficult for a beginner? ;; * Change the terminology of “kill” to “cut”, and “yank” ;; to “paste”. I would say yes (though many others surely disagree), but there are some difficulties with doing it. It is easy to change the names in the menus, but what should then be done with the command names (think mnemonics)? And backward compatibility? (Maybe this can be solved just by adding wrapper functions with new names like cut, copy, paste?) ;; * Change the terminology of keybinding to “keyboard ;; shortcut”. Use the term keybinding or binding only in a ;; technical context, such as in elisp documentation. If you search through the Info manual (use C-s) you will find "keyboard shortcuts". That is useful. Rewriting the whole manual with a new terminology takes time. ;; * Reduce the use of the word “buffer”. Call it “opened ;; file”, “unsaved document”, “tab”, “window”, as ;; appropriate. None of those names are really appropriate. ;; * Switch the terminology of Window and Frame so it is ;; more standard. That is, emacs's notion of “Window” ;; should be called Panes or Frames. While emacs's notion ;; of “Frame” should be termed Window. Mm. Perhaps many would wish that the terminology was different, but it is a lot of work to change it. I believe most developers will not find it worth that. There are many, many other things that can be done to evolve Emacs. (They are often quite a bit harder, but much more useful. Like bringing JDEE to a state comparable to Eclipse again (which would actually make it more useful than Eclipse perhaps). Or working on getting Semantics into Emacs with all the possibilities that would mean. Or ... - a lot of other things.) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: What about "The Modernization of Emacs"? 2007-12-20 22:44 ` Lennart Borgman (gmail) @ 2007-12-21 9:21 ` David Reitter 2007-12-21 19:49 ` Richard Stallman 1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: David Reitter @ 2007-12-21 9:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lennart Borgman; +Cc: bug-gnu-emacs, Sean Ochoa On 20 Dec 2007, at 22:44, Lennart Borgman (gmail) wrote: > > ;; * Make longlines-mode the default editor behavior for any > ;; file. (So that, the up arrow and down arrow keys moves > ;; the cursor by a visual line, not by line-return > ;; character. > > I think this deserves some thought. > > By default Emacs wraps long lines. This is not the same as longlines- > mode. I think it would be useful to be able to use down/up arrows to > move to the next/previous visual line. I believe this might be what > beginners expect. (Maybe there is already such an option in Emacs?) Longlines mode is littered with problems. It fails to break lines correctly just when you need soft word wrapping most, i.e. for long prose texts which are displayed with a variable width font, or where lines are shown in different font sizes (AUCTeX). Longlines fails to recognize comments, e.g., in LaTeX (this is a bug!). Because the line- number correspondence between files and buffer lines get lost, a lot of functions simply don't work any longer (this is a bug!), such as jumping to the place of errors in LaTeX files (compiler reports file lines, then jumps to buffer lines). I wrote some code to make `pdfsync' work with longlines in AUCTeX, but these things are really just hacks because the mode rightfully assumes that buffer line = file line. Longlines also isn't recognized automatically when a text file with many long lines is loaded. The setting "use longlines for all text modes" is rather cumbersome. Rather than going on with this rant, I'd like to point readers to a post by Fernando Pereira: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.macintosh.osx/3524 Instigating change is good. But solving the problems is better. Write code! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: What about "The Modernization of Emacs"? 2007-12-20 22:44 ` Lennart Borgman (gmail) 2007-12-21 9:21 ` David Reitter @ 2007-12-21 19:49 ` Richard Stallman 1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Richard Stallman @ 2007-12-21 19:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lennart Borgman (gmail); +Cc: bug-gnu-emacs, wakiewakie I am very much against making CUA mode the default. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: What about "The Modernization of Emacs"? 2007-12-20 15:13 What about "The Modernization of Emacs"? Sean Ochoa 2007-12-20 22:44 ` Lennart Borgman (gmail) @ 2007-12-21 16:21 ` Eli Zaretskii 2007-12-21 16:33 ` Shawn Boyette ☠ 2 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2007-12-21 16:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sean Ochoa; +Cc: bug-gnu-emacs > Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:13:20 -0800 > From: "Sean Ochoa" <wakiewakie@gmail.com> > > What do the maintainers have to say about this article, "The Modernization > of Emacs" (http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html)? I think the author has an agenda (see his latest postings on gnu.emacs.help) that makes his articles suspect of propaganda and bias. I also think that Emacs maintainers do care about keeping Emacs in sync with modern UI and editing requirements, and recent Emacs development shows that very clearly. Rational suggestions for improvements in these areas are welcome, of course (please post them to emacs-devel@gnu.org, not here), but blindly accusing Emacs of being stagnant in a Web page is a very inefficient way of achieving the goal of talking Emacs maintainers into changing Emacs. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: What about "The Modernization of Emacs"? 2007-12-20 15:13 What about "The Modernization of Emacs"? Sean Ochoa 2007-12-20 22:44 ` Lennart Borgman (gmail) 2007-12-21 16:21 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2007-12-21 16:33 ` Shawn Boyette ☠ 2 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Shawn Boyette ☠ @ 2007-12-21 16:33 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Sean Ochoa; +Cc: bug-gnu-emacs I'm not a maintainer, but I'll tell you what I have to say anyway :) I think that the article is fundamentally misguided, presuming that a monoculture is a good thing, and further presuming that having to learn how to use a tool is a *bad* thing. I could expand upon both these points at length, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the thoughtful reader :) On Dec 20, 2007 10:13 AM, Sean Ochoa <wakiewakie@gmail.com> wrote: > What do the maintainers have to say about this article, "The Modernization > of Emacs" (http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html)? I find myself in the > very same boat as he's describing. Its a good thing that I have geeky > friends who already use emacs to show me the ropes. > > - Sean Ochoa > -- Shawn Boyette <sboyette@gmail.com> ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2007-12-21 19:49 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2007-12-20 15:13 What about "The Modernization of Emacs"? Sean Ochoa 2007-12-20 22:44 ` Lennart Borgman (gmail) 2007-12-21 9:21 ` David Reitter 2007-12-21 19:49 ` Richard Stallman 2007-12-21 16:21 ` Eli Zaretskii 2007-12-21 16:33 ` Shawn Boyette ☠
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