>>>>> Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> My only point is that Lisp features really do make Emacs what it is. To
> point out what Emacs is necessarily means pointing out some of those
> features (IMO).

I agree. The things that make Emacs great:

  1. Highly consistent syntax.
  2. Self-documenting.
  3. Integrated debugger.
  4. Ability to re-evaluate functions in a running environment.
     (i.e., everything that made Lisp Machines great)
  5. Natural syntax for scoping resources (`with-temp-buffer ...')
  6. Large and well documented API
  7. Stable and mature concepts evolved over decades
  8. Huge, HUGE community of cargo-cultable examples, for those just learning

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2