Mail Archives: djgpp/1999/12/04/10:38:32
In our last episode <199912022311 DOT SAA10245 AT delorie DOT com>,
the lovely and talented "Leon" <Leon AT caresystems DOT com DOT au>
broadcast on comp.os.msdos.djgpp:
|> > was just wondering how the fact that Emacs was coded in lisp
|interpreter
|> > affects the speed of launching emacs and its ram needs? (as compared to
|vim
|> > for example) in particular with regards to old systems like 486 sx with
|> > about 4 meg ram?
|>
|> Why wonder about that? It's a fact of life that Emacs *is* coded in
|> Lisp, to a large portion. So even if that were the reason for it to be
|> too slow to be useful, on that small machine, you'ld not be able to do
|> anything about it, anyway.
|
|not true - i am in the process of deciding whether to use vim or emacs - so
|if the situation would spell the very slow EMACS on a machine of interest -
|then i would do something about it - ie use vim.
I don't quite understand the problem here. The point of djgpp is
that you are on a DOS or Windows machine. There must be a hundred
DOS free or shareware editors that are much more powerful than
either vim or emacs. The vim or emacs discussion makes sense if
you are stuck in a uniod environment where applications are
are few and far between and they all assume you are on a VT100 mono
terminal with no function keys (but connected to a Cray with
unlimited resources).
Any editor that maps backspace to the help function
(emacs) is simply out of place on a desktop with a 104+ keyboard.
And a glorified line editor (like vim) is the sort of thing DOS
left in the dust with the late and not-very-lamented edline.
Emacs is an incredible resource hog because it was designed
by grad students with access to mainframes. Vim has the singular
distinction of being the most counter-intuitive editor in
existence. Take your pick. (If you really are stuck in
a unoid environment, get joe which can be customized to
behave like a real editor.)
If the applications existed for uniods, no one would run
DOS, Windows, or djgpp. But they don't, and just about all
the development for uniods seems directed at pouring
resources down the bottomless X-windows pit.
--
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