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: Daniel Weinreb Died ((1959 ~ 2012) Lisp Programer) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 03:25:21 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1347100223 6348 80.91.229.3 (8 Sep 2012 10:30:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 10:30:23 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Sep 08 12:30:24 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1TAIIr-00087i-NZ for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 08 Sep 2012 12:30:17 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:46208 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TAIIo-0003lC-B1 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 08 Sep 2012 06:30:14 -0400 Original-Received: by 10.66.85.98 with SMTP id g2mr1504567paz.37.1347099921508; Sat, 08 Sep 2012 03:25:21 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by 10.68.233.104 with SMTP id tv8mt7407467pbc.5.1347099921485; Sat, 08 Sep 2012 03:25:21 -0700 (PDT) Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!r4no6842397pbs.0!news-out.google.com!a8ni11392184pbd.1!nntp.google.com!4no6961862pbn.1!postnews.google.com!v19g2000pbt.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.emacs,gnu.emacs.help Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: v19g2000pbt.googlegroups.com; posting-host=76.126.112.84; posting-account=bRPKjQoAAACxZsR8_VPXCX27T2YcsyMA Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 76.126.112.84 User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/21.0.1180.89 Safari/537.1,gzip(gfe) Injection-Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2012 10:25:21 +0000 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu comp.lang.lisp:310944 comp.emacs:102578 gnu.emacs.help:194353 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:86696 Archived-At: Daniel Weinreb Died ((1959 ~ 2012) Lisp Programer) http://ergoemacs.org/misc/Daniel_Weinreb_died.html plain text version follows ------------------------------ Daniel Weinreb died today. Cancer. Aged 53. (=E2=89=881959 ~ 2012-09-07). Obituary at http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bostonglobe/obituary.aspx?page= =3Dlifestory&pid=3D159710898 Daniel frequently use comp.lang.lisp. Since about 2007, i became acquainted with him, because he responded to some of my lisp criticisms. Subsequently i learned of his status in the lisp community. Later have exchanged a couple email with him. I didn't know he had cancer. Don't think he ever blogged about his illness. Daniel Weinreb used Emacs before Richard Stallman, and is a co-founder of Symbolics, a lisp company during 1980s. He told me about how emacs keybinding started. Source groups.google.com. From: Daniel Weinreb =E3=80=94d...@alum.mit.edu=E3=80=95 User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (Windows/20080421) Newsgroups: comp.emacs,comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: effective emacs xah...@gmail.com wrote: =E2=94=82 Effective Emacs =E2=94=82 =E2=94=82 (Long term emacs productivity tips.) =E2=94=82 =E2=94=82 Xah Lee, 2008-05-29 =E2=94=82 =E2=94=82 I have used emacs daily since 1998. Typically, i spent severa= l hours =E2=94=82 inside emacs, everyday, for the past 10 years. Same for me, except the year is 1977. Nobody has been using Emacs longer than I have (I was one of the original beta-testers. I refer here to the original Emacs, written in ITS TECO for the DEC 10.) =E2=94=82 Emacs's default cursor moving shortcuts are =E2=80=9CCtrl+f= =E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9CCtrl+b=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9CCtrl =E2=94=82 +n=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9CCtrl+p=E2=80=9D. The keys f, b, n, p ar= e scattered around the keyboard =E2=94=82 and are not under the home row. That's true. At the time Guy Steele put together the Emacs default key mappings, many people in the target user community (about 20 people at MIT!) were already using these key bindings. It would have been hard to get the new Emacs bindings accepted by the community if they differed for such basic commands. As you point out, anyone using Emacs can very easily change this based on their own ergonomic preferences. =E2=94=82 GOOD =E2=94=82 Microsoft Natural Multimedia keyboard Let me put in a quick plug for my own favorite keyboard, which I am using right now: the Unicomp Customizer: http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/customizer.html I like the feel of the keys very much. I agree with you that it's important, and worth some effort, for everyone to find a keyboard that they feel most comfortable with. =E2=94=82 Problem and Why Emacs's Keyboard Shortcuts Are Painful. I generally make few customizations to the key bindings, so that when I work with another programmer, I can turn the keyboard over to them and not cause confusion. =E2=94=82 Steve advices users to =E2=80=9CLose the UI=E2=80=9D. I rarely use the menu bar. On the other hand, I was raised on an Emacs that didn't have a menu bar, so I could be atypical. Using the mouse to set point or set the region is great, though, and I use that a lot. Here's another piece of historical trivia. The Emacs keyboard macro feature was inspired by a similar feature in the Stanford DRAW system, an electrical CAD system widely-used by the AI lab hardware hackers at the time. It was very powerful. But if you made a mistake, it could really destroy your design, and so it was a good idea to save to disk before running it. We had a saying for what happened if you forgot to save: "A moment of convenience, a lifetime of regret." This predates the widespread use of "Undo" functionality, surely one of the best ideas for user interfaces ever invented. -- Dan Daniel is a co-founder of the lisp company Symbolics. Sometimes, you can see he speaks out on lisp history. Here's one: =E3=80=94Rebuttal to Stallman's Story About The Formation of Symbolics and LMI 2007-11-11 By Daniel Weinreb. @ danweinreb.org (local copy Daniel_Weinreb_rebuttal_to_stallmans_story.txt)=E3=80=95 Daniel also wrote a version of emacs. EINE (EINE Is Not Emacs). Here's quote from Wikipedia: EINE (a recursive acronym standing for =E2=80=9CEINE Is Not Emacs=E2=80= =9D) was the Emacs text editor for Lisp machines. It was developed by Daniel Weinreb and Mike McMahon in the late 1970s, with a command set the same as the original Emacs written in TECO by Richard Stallman. It would later be developed into ZWEI ( =E2=80=9CZWEI Was Eine Initially=E2=80= =9D), which itself would eventually become Symbolics' Zmacs (integrated into Symbolics' development for their Lisp machines, Genera). It was the second Emacs written, and the first to be written in Lisp. (for some emacs history, see: GNU Emacs and XEmacs Schism, by Ben Wing.) On occasion i criticized lisp's cons, Daniel gently nudged me to give detail. See: Programing Language: A Ruby Illustration of Lisp Problems. Daniel Weinreb himself have criticized Common Lisp. See: Common Lisp Sucks. One of the popular article Dan has written is a comparison of Common Lisp implementations. =E3=80=94Common Lisp Implementations: A Survey 2007-12-20 By Daniel Weinreb. @ Source common-lisp.net=E3=80=95 When he announced that on comp.lang.lisp, i recommended the page be broken to sub-pages, and other formatting issues. See: Monolithic Web Pages. He didn't take it to heart. (and i regret my tone in the criticism) Daniel Weinreb is also mentioned in the acknowledgement section in The UNIX-HATERS Handbook. (see the PDF file at The Unix Pestilence.) Dan's blog is at. http://danweinreb.org/blog/ Last entry is just 2 days ago, where he talks about learning French. I feel sad that Dan is gone. Xah