Re: Windows emacs-25.1 i686 vs x86_64?

[phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> What we are doing is we are bikeshedding about a short paragraph of
> text that I added back to a README, that's all.  It's a mouse that
> gave birth to a mountain.  I guess we have nothing more important to
> do with our time.

My motivation for raising the issue and deleting that text was not one
of bikeshedding.

Of course, as a piece of software with a 40 year history, Emacs is both
bound to and probably should be a relatively conservative project. But,
at the same time, it does need to change and adapt with the times, at
many different levels. And, it has done: dash.el at a code level, a
package system at adminstrative level and now double buffering in the
display.

Emacs is old. Because of this it displays in part maturity and in parts
senescence. Keep the former is a good thing, the latter is not. What
concerns me, here, is that in a document which might be the first thing
that a prospective new user sees, we are saying "if you use Windows 9x".

Every year, I get the privilege of teaching some of the next generation
of programmers, and I live program with Emacs in front of them. Windows
98 became obsolete when they were eight and was released before they
were born. We're never going to be the coolest kids on the block and to
try would be Dad-dancing. But, appearing to live in the past is not good
either (cue Jethro Tull).

Here I leave the discussion.

Phil