Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>>>     Eh? No! You don't have to dig into source code for Emacs to
>>>> customize it. It comes with a Lisp interpreter for a reason!
>>>
>>> You do if you want to make it do something there isn't a setting for.
>>
>> Like a new garbage collector?  Pretty much only the core elisp
>> interpreter and basic IO routines are in C, the rest of emacs is elisp.
> 
> I doubt anybody ever needs to dig into the C code. But if you want a new
> Emacs feature that there isn't a setting for, you're going to need to
> dig through a few hundred miles of Lisp to figure out how and where to
> add it. That's what I'm trying to say.

	And I'm not sure I agree. Again, it's not a simple task of assigning a
setting. You can customize by writing your own commands. While writing
your own commands, you make use of the ones Emacs provides (a _big_ list).

	Take your example of inserting a new column in a lot of text with some
predefined quantity. Should be straightforward to write your own
function for.

	Now if you want to write some syntax highlighting, code cleaning for an
obscure language that Emacs does not have a mode for (not at all
unlikely), then that can take quite a bit of coding (and you'd be best
off by looking at the source code of how Emacs handles a fairly simple
language). I bet it's still significantly less than you'd do if fiddling
with the SciTE source code.

	If you meant to say that "one has to learn a lot before he can make
significant changes", then I'd agree. If you simply want custom
functions that do simple tasks (like the column one, etc), then I'd
disagree.

	Emacs is not an editor you just pick up and become an expert in. That
can take years. The idea is that you use it as a normal editor, and
slowly learn new things as little needs arise. Hopefully the rest will
come naturally.

-- 
Lisa: Oedipus killed his father and married his mother.
Homer: Who payed for THAT wedding?


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