From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Miles Bader Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:44:17 +0900 Organization: NEC Electronics Message-ID: References: <47107.6355003335$1215674200@news.gmane.org> <87fxqh34jk.fsf@edna.homeunix.org> <877ibt33p4.fsf@edna.homeunix.org> <8763rdqopj.fsf@catnip.gol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1215754959 7408 80.91.229.12 (11 Jul 2008 05:42:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 05:42:39 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jul 11 07:43:24 2008 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 4.50) id 1KHBPg-0007k0-77 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:43:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:38144 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KHBOo-00049H-JV for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:42:30 -0400 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 31 Original-X-Trace: individual.net PlEA5uRi0zf9NnOotgpthAJQG6xfMTULXX9t0z4nibhHRGEZnh Cancel-Lock: sha1:7k5WieFtmHyjhUomh4T2vk1XDU4= sha1:pPk721YKPo9ef2QeTBomLfvavdY= System-Type: i686-pc-linux-gnu Blat: Foop Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:160070 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:55416 Archived-At: Cezar Halmagean writes: > This is what I keep hearing about Emacs, how it would take a complete > rewrite to support that. Is that true ? Or what is the *thing* missing > in Emacs that makes it so hard to make it a top web dev IDE/editor. You can do anything you want, it's just a matter of code.... :-) The problem, as I understand it, is that typical Emacs major modes use a lot of buffer-local variables etc, and make various assumptions about having "control" of the whole buffer. Many Emacs primitive mechanisms actually _can_ be made to work on sub-regions of the buffer (e.g., syntax tables, keymaps, etc., are traditionally buffer-local, but can also be defined using text-properties). One could write a mode which is very careful to respect such region boundaries, and uses region-local mechanisms instead of buffer-local ones, but it would likely be a fair amount of work, and mean you probably can't re-use existing code very easily. What is really desirable, I think, is some way of transparently fooling "whole buffer" modes into thinking they have control of a whole buffer, when in fact, they just have control of part of one. I think it's probably possible to do this (perhaps using an extension of the indirect buffer mechanism?) but afaik nobody has really looked at the problem closely. -Miles -- "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." Mahatma Gandhi