the Modernization of Emacs
in [Lisp]
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From: Tim Bradshaw on 10 Apr 2006 13:53 > it's a bit daunting to the beginner to find > that a program that simply edits text can be so damn complicated... You know, that's *exactly* what I think every time I have to do something in Word.
From: Xah Lee on 10 Apr 2006 16:06 one bag of morons. don't feel like dealing now. will write off in few days. maybe i'm down, but sometimes i wonder, whether my problems's because, i'm a outlier of mind. coupled with a character, due by a odd growth'n'faring, rose a difficulty, with the sea of 'holes, and the motherfucking heart, that's in males, demonic. Xah xah(a)xahlee.org ∑ http://xahlee.org/ Xah Lee wrote: > Things emacs need to change for modern world: > > * Change the keyboard shortcut of Copy & Paste to meta-C and meta-V > as to be the same with all modern applications. > * Change the undo behavior so that there is a Undo and Redo, as the > same with all modern applications. > * Get rid of the *scratch* buffer. > * Make longlines-mode the default editor behavior for any file. > > Things emacs should do now, even though it eventually will do. > > * When opening a HTML document, automatically provide highlighting > of HTML, CSS, and Javascript codes. Similarly for other multi-language > files such as PHP, JSP, et al. This behavior must be automatic without > requiring user to customize emacs. > > Possible Documentation Change Proposals > > * Reduce the use of the word “buffer†in the emacs > documentation. Call it “opened file†or “unsaved documentâ€. > * Switch the terminology of Window and Frame so it is more > standard. That is, Emacs's “Window†should be called Panes or > Frames. While Emacs's “Frame†should be termed Window. > * Change the terminology of keybinding to “keyboard shortcut†> in emacs documentation. Use the term keybinding or binding only in a > technical context, such as in elisp documentation.
From: Adi Ron on 10 Apr 2006 17:55 "Xah Lee" <xah(a)xahlee.org> writes: > Things emacs need to change for modern world: > > * Change the keyboard shortcut of Copy & Paste to meta-C and meta-V > as to be the same with all modern applications. > * Change the undo behavior so that there is a Undo and Redo, as the > same with all modern applications. > * Get rid of the *scratch* buffer. > * Make longlines-mode the default editor behavior for any file. > You're more than welcome to put these things in your ~/.emacs file. > Things emacs should do now, even though it eventually will do. > > * When opening a HTML document, automatically provide highlighting > of HTML, CSS, and Javascript codes. Similarly for other multi-language > files such as PHP, JSP, et al. This behavior must be automatic without > requiring user to customize emacs. It pretty much does that as far as I know. > > Possible Documentation Change Proposals > > * Reduce the use of the word ?buffer? in the emacs > documentation. Call it ?opened file? or ?unsaved document?. No, buffer makes more sense for developers, because it's a buffer - not a file necessarily. > * Switch the terminology of Window and Frame so it is more > standard. That is, Emacs's ?Window? should be called Panes or > Frames. While Emacs's ?Frame? should be termed Window. > * Change the terminology of keybinding to ?keyboard shortcut? > in emacs documentation. Use the term keybinding or binding only in a > technical context, such as in elisp documentation. "Keybinding" is very accepted in all sorts of software. > > Xah > xah(a)xahlee.org > ? http://xahlee.org/ > If we do what you say, emacs will just be a glorified M$ Notepad (TM of course) clone. -- Dushkin http://www.dushkin.org/
From: M Jared Finder on 10 Apr 2006 23:54 Xah Lee wrote: > Things emacs need to change for modern world: > > * Change the keyboard shortcut of Copy & Paste to meta-C and meta-V > as to be the same with all modern applications. Actually, that would be C-c and C-v, not M-C and M-V. I agree with this. If you try out EmacsW32 <http://ourcomments.org/Emacs/EmacsW32.html>, you'll find that it has a wizard that runs when you first run Emacs that enables CUA, and also rebinds C-a to select all, instead of beginning-of-line. > * Change the undo behavior so that there is a Undo and Redo, as the > same with all modern applications. This would make sense. Emacs already has undo-only; it's not hard to imagine adding a redo-only. This would also bring Emacs in line with just about every other editor. Now the big question is what the keybinding should be -- C-y or C-S-z. > * Get rid of the *scratch* buffer. I completely disagree. Just like you wouldn't want to get rid of /tmp/, you don't want to get rid of *scratch*. Sometimes you want to create some temporary notes, and you don't care about them being saved. That's what *scratch* is for. > * Make longlines-mode the default editor behavior for any file. Unless you can make longlines-mode act sensibly with programming languages, no way. If my C code is going to be token wrapped, it'd better put the newlines in the right places -- before the operator, after my open parenthesis in function definitions, etc. If it doesn't do that correctly, I'd be extremely pissed. Now for text-mode, this makes sense. > > Things emacs should do now, even though it eventually will do. > > * When opening a HTML document, automatically provide highlighting > of HTML, CSS, and Javascript codes. Similarly for other multi-language > files such as PHP, JSP, et al. This behavior must be automatic without > requiring user to customize emacs. I agree. There's mmm-mode, but that's not part of Emacs core yet. Maybe in Emacs 23... > Possible Documentation Change Proposals > > * Reduce the use of the word ?buffer? in the emacs > documentation. Call it ?opened file? or ?unsaved document?. I disagree. Not all buffers are files. I don't think it makes sense to talk about the *compilation* unsaved document or the *grep* unsaved document. A buffer is just a collection of text that you can edit. It may or may not make sense for this collection of text to be associated with a file. > * Switch the terminology of Window and Frame so it is more > standard. That is, Emacs's ?Window? should be called Panes or > Frames. While Emacs's ?Frame? should be termed Window. I like the idea, but it'd be hard to change all the names of all the existing functions, as long as Emacs does not have a namespace system (like Common Lisp's package system). > * Change the terminology of keybinding to ?keyboard shortcut? > in emacs documentation. Use the term keybinding or binding only in a > technical context, such as in elisp documentation. Why bother? It makes sense, and in fact Emacs mentions Keyboard shortcut in the index. But I don't think it matters enough to change all the documentation. -- MJF
From: Robert Uhl on 11 Apr 2006 00:08
"Sacha" <no(a)address.spam> writes: > > Sure the tool looks like awesome, but does it really need to be so > unfriendly ? I can't imagine any better way than emacs to frighten > the newbie lisper. Part of the problem is that the things which might make it initially friendlier would make it far less friendly in the long run. The keystrokes are a good example: yes, they're unlike anything else out there; they're also amazingly useful and for the most part very well-thought-out. Changing C-y to C-v and C-v to PgDn and so forth would really hurt emacs; once one has learnt the (admittedly strange to the modern user) emacs keys one will never want to go back. -- Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl> The betterment of fools, Goethe tells us, is the appropriate business of other fools. The Underground Grammarian does not seek to educate anyone. We intend rather to ridicule, humiliate, and infuriate those who abuse our language not so that they will do better but so that they will stop using language entirely or at least go away. --The Underground Grammarian |