Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/05/16/11:34:52
On Thu, 15 May 1997 16:43:38 GMT, Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
wrote:
>On Mon, 12 May 1997, jon wrote:
>> >What's so great about Emacs anyway?
>> If you are willing to spend a few months or a year or so to really get
>> in to it, it'll have the edge on DOS's EDIT. Spend some more time, and
>> you can do everything from read newsgroups to clean up directories
>> from emacs.
>
>Actually, it doesn't take more than a few minutes to make Emacs supercede
>EDIT. That is, if you care to begin by reading the tutorial that comes
>with Emacs, instead of randomly pressing keys and clicking the mouse on
>the menus which you don't understand.
And, if you only use emacs occasionally, then a month later you need
to read that tutorial again.
And then another month later.
OK, the EDIT comparison was mostly tounge-in-cheek, but I can say that
in 5 years of using emacs, I still can't always remember the key
combinations to do what I know to do intuitively with any other editor
(well, except vi!). And ask somebody in the lab how to do something,
and you get three different answers, all workable. All reflecting the
coping skills of the different users.
I'll say it again: it hanging around computers is a focus for one's
time, emacs is the ticket, because it is not just an editor- it is an
open approach to interfacing with your computer, from compiling
programs to reading email to writing papers.
And RHIDE is a specialized editor just for programming in DJGPP. If
somebody is new to programming DJGPP, I don't think emacs is a great
starting point. Rhide does a lot of the work.
>> PC at home. I mean, why start up a freight-train when you can just
>> walk next door?
>
>One reason is that when you use Emacs, you invest in learning a single
>editor that is available on every development platform you can imagine,
>from DOS through Windows 3.x/95/NT and Unix to Cray. There is a limit to
>how many powerful editors a person can learn well in a life time.
A single *huge* editor. What is it up to now... 30 meg!? That is a
freight train. I can't fit it on my hard disk at home; I run with a
constant 100meg overhead, and I just don't have room.
>Another reason is that Emacs can be made to do anything. IMHO, no other
>editor can compete with Emacs in this aspect, because Emacs has such a
>huge base of people who write extensions for it.
People around me swear by it, and express joy at every new thing they
figure out to make it do. It is like a hobby.
>Let's say you will need
>a special mode to edit VHDL files with your editor. With Emacs, you just
>grep the directory where the packages are and you find one. With any
>other editor, you are at the mercy of the maintainer(s).
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