From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Fernando Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Why Emacs should have a good web-browser Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 22:11:15 +0200 Message-ID: Reply-To: ferkiwi+a@gmail.com NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1247083917 32446 80.91.229.12 (8 Jul 2009 20:11:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 20:11:57 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jul 08 22:11:50 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1MOdUb-0000Db-VL for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:11:50 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:39083 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MOdUb-0005MR-8P for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:11:49 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MOdUW-0005Je-6D for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:11:44 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MOdUR-0005D9-0m for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:11:43 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=49518 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MOdUQ-0005Cm-T7 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:11:38 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-bw0-f213.google.com ([209.85.218.213]:35894) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MOdUQ-0000mf-9I for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:11:38 -0400 Original-Received: by bwz9 with SMTP id 9so612522bwz.42 for ; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:11:35 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=qNwiSEgyQVvWcEbxCQ1fKG9TW22qc+4D4assqCxIsNc=; b=K4sjCBv5zygykTPqsD5K+7t23DBoNsRfU71f9ZiK/q8V1Zr2TcmMMk5Aq4HBofiQZb UqGCKJ4eRk5H6omjXqTrW8YUdiixHxu0jfORujhkHe6CeCQDzATj8M9DiQDQw3ASEzum NhO6yJe+TLZi+LpUnJbB6wtQSnhsyr+q2PHIs= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=vw1WImJ/aFok23nANcIZhSixH0I2rYIzEsdbERSzHldPJVgX0pl1ItrhS7ucu0dxN/ VPvn3f5VOk2iJpi3iyjNM88Jwt3KJN89+TaaHVYtsFjSnt7g0fuMk2QSiq5ucVBVn+Rs hwjwkYCAa5YglNc+yrBc5TiyMPrs2MMttRhLY= Original-Received: by 10.223.107.68 with SMTP id a4mr3622972fap.44.1247083895684; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:11:35 -0700 (PDT) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:112191 Archived-At: Hello. Sorry if this is not the right place, but I wanted to ask some questions to the community and expose some arguments. First, I would like to know if you agree about the reasons for having a web browser in Emacs (either as part of it or as an external lisp package). 1) One of the main purposes of Emacs is programming. Web development, css and JavaScript are emerging languages present a lot in the internet since a long time and now they are even extending to the desktop (gnome-shell, seed, adium themes...). Emacs has modes and tools to edit on this languages, but the integration is not as good as it could be if you had js and html interpreters integrated in Emacs itself. 2) There are very few web browsers that are comfortable to use in a keyboard-only interface. Emacs would be very good in this sense because its keyboard navigation is very usable and as it's designed for editing text, it will be perfect for all the form editing, comment writing and all the editing related actions you have to do often in a browser (editing wikipedia articles, etc). 3) Emacspeak has turned Emacs into a very accessible environment for the visual-impaired and it would offer these people a highly customizable interface to help them browse the web, along with the keybindings. 4) Emacs since long time has been one of the greatest tools for an operative system. During the Age Of The Usenet it was an good newsreader. Now that the newsgroups have started to die slowly and the HTTP protocol and Javascript are the kings of the big cloud Emacs should adapt to it. 5) Browsers are turning into the next generation Emacs! they can browse ftp, access IRC channels, check your mail, read pdf and other things with embeded applications, now they can even play video/audio as a core functionality, they are often used for editing text (web forms, comments in blogs, etc)... there's even the whole "Google Chrome OS" designed around a browser. Sooner or later they will be able to edit code (there's even prototypes for this already) when this happens Emacs has to compete or it will slowly die. Web browsers are turning into the main program for the end/power-user in a PC, when they reach Emacs in functionality I'm sure a lot of people (even Emacs users) would end up switching to hack Javascript instead of LISP. 6) The special features of Lisp and the extensibility of Emacs make it be the perfect candidate for an extensible and modular web browser. Current browsers are tending to improve their extensibility by means of "plugins" and "extensions". Emacs has since long time a powerful scripting that a lot of browsers would envy to have. - Emacs-w3m is not enough and it's not an Emacs module that can be extended. - Emacs/w3 was a very good idea but soon it has passed more than 1 year since the last single commit to the git repository, it doesn't look very active at all (am I wrong?). So.. I just want to know what's the general feeling of the emacs-dev community about having an emacs web-browser and what expectations should we have in this regard, is there any other work being done by anyone? how much is the interest on this? Not long ago a new (alpha) version of Guile was released that introduced some basic support for ECMAscript, announcing that there's a goal to support up to version 3.1 of the spec. Would this make it possible for a (distant) future Guile Emacs to be able to have an efficient Javascript-capable web browser? There also seems that a bit more of work was put on the Guile elisp compiler lately, although it's still far from being mature. -- Fernando (sorry for my english)