>>> Ported to many platforms
>>
>> SciTE runs on both Windows and Linux, and that's all I need.
> 
> Ah, yes, the old and tired it-fits-my-purpose argument.  Aunt Jemima 
> pulls it around everytime to show how Notepad is just the same as Emacs 
> or vim.

I'm just trying to figure out whether Emacs does anything that SciTE 
doesn't which will be useful to me, that's all.

>>> Internationalization
>>
>> Not important to me.
> 
> Yeah, surely not important at all, except perhaps for the 3 billions of 
> Indians and Chinese plus another billions of people who don't speak 
> English.

I didn't say it's not important to them, I said it's not important to 
*me*. Different thing.

>>> Many editing modes
>>
>> ...and?
> 
> Well, for once it means you may edit Haskell with far more ease than 
> with simple syntax highlighting.  If you RTFM for that mode, that is.

By pure coincidence, some people have just been debating this very 
thing. Apparently the existing Haskell major mode works quite well, but 
indentation doesn't work right.

>>> Self documenting with built in tutorial
>>> Detailed and well written manuals
>>
>> Nice, but secondary. It's good to know a tool is easy to learn, but 
>> the question is whether it's *worth* learning in the first place.
> 
> When you finally see the light and understand it's well worth, it's 
> there for you and you won't bother to bash yet another open-source 
> project for lack of documentation.

I wonder if this is like "seeing the light" about Lisp. People claim 
that learning Lisp will transform your life. Personally, I found it did 
no such thing...

>>> AFAIK notepad is/has none of the above.
>>
>> Agreed. Notepad fails in many, many basic ways. But SciTE is quite 
>> nice in general.
> 
> Yes, SciTE is a wonderful editor.  Even being a helluva less powerful 
> than emacs or vim.

Well, SciTE isn't perfect, for sure. It's a PITA to configure the thing, 
and there are certain things you just can't get it to do right. But 
overall, it's a damn site nicer than Notepad.

> It's worth learning for no other reason than most open-source language 
> implementations out there have at the very least a very handy 
> language-mode available for Emacs which quickly turn it into a quite 
> featureful customized IDE for said language.

So you're saying it's the network effect - because so many people use 
it, a lot of useful code is developed for it?

> Then, there are also incredibly powerful and handy general purpose text 
> editing features that once you learn to use you'll ask yourself how 
> you've lost so many unproductive years of your life in lesser editors. 
> Like copy-paste cyclic buffer, keyboard macros for performing repetitive 
> tasks, quick jumping between visited points in the text (like automatic 
> bookmarks everytime you jump around in the text), sessions, editor 
> customized to suit language needs and many others.  SciTE (or kate) 
> simply still not there at all.

Now, see, that all sounds very nice. But SciTE and Kate both have 
sessions, and I never use them. (Indeed, it would annoy me to open up a 
new editor window and get the files I was working on last time.) Several 
programs have a clipboard that can store multiple items, and again I 
never use it. Having marks sounds useful, but I suspect in practice it's 
far too fiddly to figure out which mark you're trying to jump to. These 
things all *sound* useful, but in practice probably too hard to use.

Let's face it, every text editor on Earth worthy of the name has cursor 
movement. And yet, when I type a sentence and realise I made a mistake 
typing it, rather than just move the cursor to where the mistake is, 
it's often simpler to just hold down the backspace key and delete up to 
where the mistake was, and then retype everything after that. If I don't 
use such a basic feature as cursor keys, how much am I going to use a 
cyclic undo buffer?

One feature I actually *want* and that no known editor seems to have is 
the ability to do stuff to tabular data easily. Like, if you suddenly 
decide that you need to append the same piece of text to all 10 lines. 
Or you have a grid of numbers, and you want to add another column in the 
middle. Or stuff like that. Since Emacs == Lisp, it seems that you could 
probably spend 20 minutes writing some code that would do what you want. 
(And, indeed, potentially you could even generate text algorithmically, 
although I don't know how hard that is...)

> Couple emacs and vim with exuberant-ctags (an external tool supporting 
> many languages) and you turn your text editor into an almost as good IDE 
> for handling large projects and many files.

Playing devil's advocate: Why use something "almost as good as an IDE" 
when you can use an actual IDE?

> First thing to do either in emacs or vim is to run the interactive 
> tutorials.  In about 30 minutes, it'll cover the basics and give you a 
> good overall sense of what it is and how to use the powerful tool. Then, 
> getting help on specific subjects of current interest.

Maybe I will, just for giggles...

Post a reply to this message

>> What is it, exactly, that makes Emacs so fantastic? What does it
>> actually *do* beyond being a text editor?
> 
> Lots. But its household name is historical, goes back to the dark ages of
> computing. There are dozens of quite decent free text editors nowadays.

OK, I can kind of see that. Way back in the dark ages, when text files 
were generated by having a professional typist type it onto punch cards, 
where people operated computers using monochrome dumb terminals 
connected to a mainframe, and where the only way to operate on a text 
file was edlin, I can imagine Emacs causing a stir. Everybody uses edlin 
to painfully crawl through a file one line at a time, and then suddenly 
this thing comes along with realtime interactive full-screen text 
editing, scrolling and multiple windows in its text-based UI, 
sophsticated facilities such as find and replace that previously 
required complicated shell scripting, and all completely customisable 
using a high-end interpretted scripting language called Lisp. It must 
have seemed so futuristic back then.

It just seems to me that now almost everything Emacs does can also be 
done by half a dozen other tools - most of which don't require you to 
memorise long sequences of keyboard acrobatics to do things. So while I 
get that Emacs seemed amazing 30 years ago, why do people still use it 
today?

Post a reply to this message

>> emacs is a religion.  Notepad isn't.
I've been using Notepad++ lately, it seems OK.
It has context highlighting for a bunch of languages.
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Didn't mice and pull-down menus make 
Emacs obsolete?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > Screenshots don't show functionality.
>
> No, but they do show me that the UI looks utterly horrid.

It does strike me as a little odd to criticise emacs for having an ugly UI... I
realise that visual icing sells products, but you wouldn't complain that a
command shell has an ugly UI. It's like not buying a car because you don't like
the layout of the engine bay.

> Er, no... HOW DO YOU TYPE THAT? What buttons is it actually telling you
> to press?

C = ctrl

> About the most convincing justification I could find was "it has
> millions of tiny features that together add up to something special". Of
> course, you'd have to use it for 20 years to find out of that's actually
> true or not...

Well, I've been using it at work for about 6 months, and while I've not really
altered it from our default config I am starting to like it. It's main
advantage as far as I can see is the degree to which it can be customised -
basically, you can build your own text editor based on what commands/keystrokes
you prefer to work with.

I must have a pick over Warp's comprehensive and most useful-looking config
file... :-)

Post a reply to this message

>>> Screenshots don't show functionality.
>> No, but they do show me that the UI looks utterly horrid.
> 
> It does strike me as a little odd to criticise emacs for having an ugly UI... I
> realise that visual icing sells products, but you wouldn't complain that a
> command shell has an ugly UI. It's like not buying a car because you don't like
> the layout of the engine bay.

If you're going to spend hours of your life staring at something, 
wouldn't you like it to look nice?

I mean, if you're forced to use a console window to do something, then 
fair enough. But this is 2009. We have graphics systems capable of 
better. Why not make use of that fact?

>> Er, no... HOW DO YOU TYPE THAT? What buttons is it actually telling you
>> to press?
> 
> C = ctrl

So "C-u" actually means "Ctrl+U"?

>> About the most convincing justification I could find was "it has
>> millions of tiny features that together add up to something special". Of
>> course, you'd have to use it for 20 years to find out of that's actually
>> true or not...
> 
> Well, I've been using it at work for about 6 months, and while I've not really
> altered it from our default config I am starting to like it. It's main
> advantage as far as I can see is the degree to which it can be customised -
> basically, you can build your own text editor based on what commands/keystrokes
> you prefer to work with.

Well, I don't know. SciTE is open-source. If you want to, it's perfectly 
possible to download the source code and modify it. But let's face it, 
who the hell is going to do that? Nobody. Similarly, Emacs lets you 
change absolutely anything [with the not inconsiderable detail that you 
don't have to recompile anything]. But only once you've read and 
memorised the entire source tree. How feasible is that, really?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible schrieb:
> One feature I actually *want* and that no known editor seems to have is 
> the ability to do stuff to tabular data easily. Like, if you suddenly 
> decide that you need to append the same piece of text to all 10 lines. 

jEdit can do that.

My 2 eurocents,

Bonsai

Post a reply to this message

> One feature I actually *want* and that no known editor seems to have is 
> the ability to do stuff to tabular data easily. Like, if you suddenly 
> decide that you need to append the same piece of text to all 10 lines. Or 
> you have a grid of numbers, and you want to add another column in the 
> middle. Or stuff like that.

The Windows POV editor allows you to do that stuff, as does TextPad and the 
MSVS IDE editor, in fact pretty much any editor I've tried that isn't 
notepad allows this.

The standard seems to be to hold down Alt while dragging out a selection 
rectangle, then when you type (or hit backspace) it does that action to 
every line in the selection.  Try it in POV to see how it works.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> If you're going to spend hours of your life staring at something,
> wouldn't you like it to look nice?

I look at the text, not the window furniture. (I don't care much for the M$
window furniture anyway, but I definitely appear to be in a minority there ;-))

> I mean, if you're forced to use a console window to do something, then
> fair enough. But this is 2009. We have graphics systems capable of
> better. Why not make use of that fact?

Because it's not relevant? Most people who would benefit from using something
like emacs probably don't give a monkeys about how it looks. Why would I want
my socket spanners to look suitable for a mantelpiece? :-) In any case, I think
a black background and fixed-width text is much more suitable for programming
than a wysiwyg word processor.

> > C = ctrl
>
> So "C-u" actually means "Ctrl+U"?

Aye. Again, I think it's just an old notation.

> Well, I don't know. SciTE is open-source. If you want to, it's perfectly
> possible to download the source code and modify it. But let's face it,
> who the hell is going to do that? Nobody.

What's that got to do with it? I may be a new user, but even I can see that
customising emacs is nothing like editing its source code.

> Similarly, Emacs lets you
> change absolutely anything [with the not inconsiderable detail that you
> don't have to recompile anything]. But only once you've read and
> memorised the entire source tree. How feasible is that, really?

Not at all, if it were true. Did you not glance over Warp's config file? Seems
fairly self evident, I don't know any of these configuration keywords from
memory but I'll certainly be swiping some of them for my config file in future.
If you want the extra flexibility but don't like the ancient shortcut standards,
just change them to what everyone uses now. That's what Warp did.

I'm not saying learning to use something like emacs isn't daunting - I probably
wouldn't use it myself if we didn't have it here. But you should watch a power
user navigating code libraries and running external commands. It's like a movie
scene, where single keystrokes don't seem to match up with what's happening
on-screen. (Like Scotty bringing up a 3D model of transparent aluminium in 4
seconds work - name that movie!)

Post a reply to this message

>> If you're going to spend hours of your life staring at something,
>> wouldn't you like it to look nice?
> 
> I look at the text, not the window furniture. (I don't care much for the M$
> window furniture anyway, but I definitely appear to be in a minority there ;-))

OK. But it would be nice if the text itself was crisp and readable, no?

>> I mean, if you're forced to use a console window to do something, then
>> fair enough. But this is 2009. We have graphics systems capable of
>> better. Why not make use of that fact?
> 
> Because it's not relevant? Most people who would benefit from using something
> like emacs probably don't give a monkeys about how it looks.

Funny, each time I set up SciTE, the first thing I do is change *all* 
the fonts to monospace, and then fiddle with the sizing so it's 
appropriate for the resolution of monitor I'm using (and how far away 
I'm sat). And then I turn on the line numbering. And line wrapping. (The 
kind where it shows you where the wrapped lines are, not the kind where 
it actually inserts newline characters.)

Being stuck with one ugly terminal font would just annoy me.

> In any case, I think
> a black background and fixed-width text is much more suitable for programming
> than a wysiwyg word processor.

No sensible person programs with a word processor. It's the wrong tool. 
But there are studies that show that black-on-white is easier to read 
than white-on-black, and I'd prefer to be able to change it.

>>> C = ctrl
>> So "C-u" actually means "Ctrl+U"?
> 
> Aye. Again, I think it's just an old notation.

OK, fair enough.

By the way... what kind of keyboard actually has a Meta key?

>> Well, I don't know. SciTE is open-source. If you want to, it's perfectly
>> possible to download the source code and modify it. But let's face it,
>> who the hell is going to do that? Nobody.
> 
> What's that got to do with it? I may be a new user, but even I can see that
> customising emacs is nothing like editing its source code.

Emacs is a Lisp interpretter running a text editor application written 
in Lisp. If you just want to change some setting, you can probably get 
away with adjusting a variable. But if you want to alter something there 
isn't a setting for... you need to modify the source code.

>> Similarly, Emacs lets you
>> change absolutely anything [with the not inconsiderable detail that you
>> don't have to recompile anything]. But only once you've read and
>> memorised the entire source tree. How feasible is that, really?
> 
> Not at all, if it were true. Did you not glance over Warp's config file? Seems
> fairly self evident, I don't know any of these configuration keywords from
> memory but I'll certainly be swiping some of them for my config file in future.
> If you want the extra flexibility but don't like the ancient shortcut standards,
> just change them to what everyone uses now. That's what Warp did.

On some level, it's similar to how you configure SciTE - i.e., with a 
giant text file. The difference with Emacs is that you can write complex 
blobs of arbitrary executable code to define new functionallity. (It 
seems Warp has done this.) The similarity is that, like SciTE, it'll 
take you hours to figure out which secret hidden setting changes the 
thing that's annoying you. (Or even whether there *is* a setting to 
change a particular behaviour...)

> I'm not saying learning to use something like emacs isn't daunting - I probably
> wouldn't use it myself if we didn't have it here. But you should watch a power
> user navigating code libraries and running external commands. It's like a movie
> scene, where single keystrokes don't seem to match up with what's happening
> on-screen. (Like Scotty bringing up a 3D model of transparent aluminium in 4
> seconds work - name that movie!)

I don't know the title. Whichever Star Trek movie it was that featured 
time travel.

Post a reply to this message

Bill Pragnell wrote:

> I'm not saying learning to use something like emacs isn't daunting - I probably
> wouldn't use it myself if we didn't have it here. But you should watch a power
> user navigating code libraries and running external commands. It's like a movie
> scene, where single keystrokes don't seem to match up with what's happening
> on-screen.

Heh. I always thought it would be fun to design a computer system that 
actually works that way. Apparently there's prior art...

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
...
>>> Does anybody know what the hell "C-u 10 C-f" is actually supposed to 
>>> mean?
>>
>> RTFM?
> 
> Have you seen the size of it?
> 
>> C-u 10 (do next command 10 times)
>> C-f (moves the text cursor (f)orward by 1 char)
> 
> Er, no... HOW DO YOU TYPE THAT? What buttons is it actually telling you 
> to press?

Control-u 10 Control-f


C-u  = universal-argument
C-f  = forward-char

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
...
> Or you have a grid of numbers, and you want to add another column in the 
> middle. Or stuff like that. Since Emacs == Lisp, it seems that you could 
> probably spend 20 minutes writing some code that would do what you want. 
...

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Text-Based-Tables.html#Text-Based-Tables

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

Post a reply to this message

>> Er, no... HOW DO YOU TYPE THAT? What buttons is it actually telling 
>> you to press?
> 
> Control-u 10 Control-f

So, hold control, tap U, release control, tap 1 and then 0, hold 
control, tap F, and then release control?

Post a reply to this message

Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
> ...
>> Or you have a grid of numbers, and you want to add another column in 
>> the middle. Or stuff like that. Since Emacs == Lisp, it seems that you 
>> could probably spend 20 minutes writing some code that would do what 
>> you want. 
> ...
> 
>
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Text-Based-Tables.html#Text-Based-Tables


Close, but not quite what I was thinking of.

I was thinking more like you have some text such as

   case x of
     5 -> return [(1, 4), (2, 3)]
     6 -> return [(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 3)]
     7 -> return [(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4)]

and you suddenly decide you need to change that to

   case x of
     5 -> return $ Just [(1, 4), (2, 3)]
     6 -> return $ Just [(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 3)]
     7 -> return $ Just [(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4)]

It's kinda tedious to do this by hand. (Depending on just how many times 
you need to do it, obviously...)

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> OK. But it would be nice if the text itself was crisp and readable, no?

Looks fine to me.

> Being stuck with one ugly terminal font would just annoy me.

Fair enough. I'm sure you can change this too, mind.

> By the way... what kind of keyboard actually has a Meta key?

Um, I think it's just the extra behaviour-modifier key of your choice.

> Emacs is a Lisp interpretter running a text editor application written
> in Lisp. If you just want to change some setting, you can probably get
> away with adjusting a variable. But if you want to alter something there
> isn't a setting for... you need to modify the source code.

I'm no expert, but I strongly suspect that there's a setting for everything,
including mountain-moving!

> take you hours to figure out which secret hidden setting changes the
> thing that's annoying you. (Or even whether there *is* a setting to
> change a particular behaviour...)

Yup, well, you can't make things powerful *and* easy. :-P

> > on-screen. (Like Scotty bringing up a 3D model of transparent aluminium in 4
> > seconds work - name that movie!)
> I don't know the title. Whichever Star Trek movie it was that featured
> time travel.

Ha, you only get 1/2.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
...
> One feature I actually *want* and that no known editor seems to have is 
> the ability to do stuff to tabular data easily. Like, if you suddenly 
> decide that you need to append the same piece of text to all 10 lines. 
...

If you do the following keystrokes:

C-home        // beginning-of-buffer
down          // next-line
C-k           // kill-line
C-y           // yank
down          // next-line
C-x (         // start-kbd-macro
down          // next-line
C-e           // move-end-of-line
C-y           // yank
C-x )         // kmacro-end-macro
C-u           // universal-argument
9             // 9
C-x e         // kmacro-end-and-call-macro

- while editing this text:

This is the first line in buffer.
This is the text to be appended.

Line A.
Line B.
Line C.
Line D.
Line E.
Line F.
Line G.
Line H.
Line I.
Line J.

  - you get this:

This is the first line in buffer.
This is the text to be appended.

Line A.This is the text to be appended.
Line B.This is the text to be appended.
Line C.This is the text to be appended.
Line D.This is the text to be appended.
Line E.This is the text to be appended.
Line F.This is the text to be appended.
Line G.This is the text to be appended.
Line H.This is the text to be appended.
Line I.This is the text to be appended.
Line J.This is the text to be appended.


-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:
>> Invisible wrote:
>> ...
>>> Or you have a grid of numbers, and you want to add another column in 
>>> the middle. Or stuff like that. Since Emacs == Lisp, it seems that 
>>> you could probably spend 20 minutes writing some code that would do 
>>> what you want. 
>> ...
>>
>>
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Text-Based-Tables.html#Text-Based-Tables

> 
> 
> Close, but not quite what I was thinking of.
> 
> I was thinking more like you have some text such as
> 
>   case x of
>     5 -> return [(1, 4), (2, 3)]
>     6 -> return [(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 3)]
>     7 -> return [(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4)]
> 
> and you suddenly decide you need to change that to
> 
>   case x of
>     5 -> return $ Just [(1, 4), (2, 3)]
>     6 -> return $ Just [(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 3)]
>     7 -> return $ Just [(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4)]
> 
> It's kinda tedious to do this by hand. (Depending on just how many times 
> you need to do it, obviously...)

Couldn't you just mark the region
- and then do a search for "return" and replace with "return $ Just" ?

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

Post a reply to this message

> I was thinking more like you have some text such as
>
>   case x of
>     5 -> return [(1, 4), (2, 3)]
>     6 -> return [(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 3)]
>     7 -> return [(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4)]
>
> and you suddenly decide you need to change that to
>
>   case x of
>     5 -> return $ Just [(1, 4), (2, 3)]
>     6 -> return $ Just [(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 3)]
>     7 -> return $ Just [(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4)]
>
> It's kinda tedious to do this by hand. (Depending on just how many times 
> you need to do it, obviously...)

In all editors I've used (including POV - try it!), you would hold down the 
Alt key, then click and drag from the top [ to the bottom [ to mark the 
region you want to type into.  Then when you type it gets inserted on every 
line in that region.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> What is it, exactly, that makes Emacs so fantastic? What does it
> actually *do* beyond being a text editor?

It's intelligent wrt your code in a way that no other editor I know is.

Post a reply to this message

>> Emacs is a Lisp interpretter running a text editor application written
>> in Lisp. If you just want to change some setting, you can probably get
>> away with adjusting a variable. But if you want to alter something there
>> isn't a setting for... you need to modify the source code.
> 
> I'm no expert, but I strongly suspect that there's a setting for everything,
> including mountain-moving!

Well, we'll see.

> Yup, well, you can't make things powerful *and* easy. :-P

I'm not so sure. ;-)

>>> on-screen. (Like Scotty bringing up a 3D model of transparent aluminium in 4
>>> seconds work - name that movie!)
>> I don't know the title. Whichever Star Trek movie it was that featured
>> time travel.
> 
> Ha, you only get 1/2.

Random guess: The search for Spock?

Post a reply to this message

>> What is it, exactly, that makes Emacs so fantastic? What does it
>> actually *do* beyond being a text editor?
> 
> It's intelligent wrt your code in a way that no other editor I know is.

Well, I guess... how many other editors are programmable enough to 
implement SkyNet? ;-)

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>>> Er, no... HOW DO YOU TYPE THAT? What buttons is it actually telling 
>>> you to press?
>>
>> Control-u 10 Control-f
> 
> So, hold control, tap U, release control, tap 1 and then 0, hold 
> control, tap F, and then release control?

Yes, that's almost right =)

(I wrote "u" and "f" not "U" and "F", but the result will be the same.)

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >>> on-screen. (Like Scotty bringing up a 3D model of transparent aluminium in 4
> >>> seconds work - name that movie!)
> >> I don't know the title. Whichever Star Trek movie it was that featured
> >> time travel.
> >
> > Ha, you only get 1/2.
>
> Random guess: The search for Spock?

The one after; the Voyage Home.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where they keep the nuclear wessels?"

Post a reply to this message

Tor Olav Kristensen <tor### [at] TOBEREMOVEDgmailcom> wrote:

> If you do the following keystrokes:
>
> C-home        // beginning-of-buffer
> down          // next-line
> C-k           // kill-line
> C-y           // yank
> down          // next-line
> C-x (         // start-kbd-macro
> down          // next-line
> C-e           // move-end-of-line
> C-y           // yank
> C-x )         // kmacro-end-macro
> C-u           // universal-argument
> 9             // 9
> C-x e         // kmacro-end-and-call-macro

Or its vim equivalent for those afraid of the control key ;-)

2G     //line 2
yy     //yank (copy) the line
2j     //down two lines
$      //end of line
qa     //start macro 'a'
p      //paste
j      //next line
q      //end macro
9@a    //run macro 'a' 9 times

 - Ricky

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> 
> Actually, it appears that kill = cut and yank = paste. (WTF?)
> 

Yeah, that's pretty screwy terminology. Why not use terminology like 
delete, copy and insert?

at least that makes sense ... even if the terms cut and paste didn't 
exist back then.

Interestingly, Visual Studio has Emacs emulation. I don't know how far 
it goes, though. But, I suppose if you're used to doing things the Emacs 
way it could be very useful.


-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
...
  > By the way... what kind of keyboard actually has a Meta key?
...

It is likely that you have a keyboard where Emacs regards the Esc
key as the Meta key.

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

Post a reply to this message

Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:
...
> C-home        // beginning-of-buffer
> down          // next-line
> C-k           // kill-line
> C-y           // yank
> down          // next-line
> C-x (         // start-kbd-macro
> down          // next-line
> C-e           // move-end-of-line
> C-y           // yank
> C-x )         // kmacro-end-macro
> C-u           // universal-argument
> 9             // 9
> C-x e         // kmacro-end-and-call-macro
...

Btw.: Here's a quick Emacs reference:

http://www.math.uh.edu/~bgb/emacs_keys.html

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

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Invisible wrote:
> Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:
>> Invisible wrote:
>> ...
>>> Or you have a grid of numbers, and you want to add another column in 
>>> the middle. Or stuff like that. Since Emacs == Lisp, it seems that 
>>> you could probably spend 20 minutes writing some code that would do 
>>> what you want. 
>> ...
>>
>>
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Text-Based-Tables.html#Text-Based-Tables

> 
> 
> Close, but not quite what I was thinking of.
> 
> I was thinking more like you have some text such as
> 
>   case x of
>     5 -> return [(1, 4), (2, 3)]
>     6 -> return [(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 3)]
>     7 -> return [(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4)]
> 
> and you suddenly decide you need to change that to
> 
>   case x of
>     5 -> return $ Just [(1, 4), (2, 3)]
>     6 -> return $ Just [(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 3)]
>     7 -> return $ Just [(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4)]
> 
> It's kinda tedious to do this by hand. (Depending on just how many times 
> you need to do it, obviously...)

Have a look at this:

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Rectangles.html

(The text cursor is the "point" and you can put a "mark" in the text with C-space.)

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

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Invisible wrote:
> One feature I actually *want* and that no known editor seems to have is
> the ability to do stuff to tabular data easily. Like, if you suddenly
> decide that you need to append the same piece of text to all 10 lines.

	Emacs can do this. Probably many decent editors can. Define a macro
that does it to one line (and then moves down a line). Then tell it to
execute the macro 10 times.

> Or you have a grid of numbers, and you want to add another column in the
> middle. Or stuff like that. Since Emacs == Lisp, it seems that you could

	You can use rectangular editing to add space for that column. Then just
change from insert mode to overwrite and add in the numbers.
Alternatively, in a separate buffer, type in that column. Then use
rectangular editing to copy that rectangle, and yank it into the text
that you want.

> probably spend 20 minutes writing some code that would do what you want.

	It's an old, old feature.



-- 
For a while, she had a boyfriend with a wooden leg. Then she broke it off.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Invisible wrote:
>>> Does anybody know what the hell "C-u 10 C-f" is actually supposed to
>>> mean?
>>
>>     I believe it means to do C-f many, many times. Don't know for sure as
>> I'm not (yet) a real emacs user.
> 
> No no, I mean... HOW DO YOU TYPE THAT? What keys is it actually talking
> about?

	Oh come on! This is the lamest of your complaints. If it was written as:

Ctrl-u 10 Ctrl-f

OR

^u 10 ^f

	You'd get it. But C-u 10 C-f? *That's* creating problems for you?

>>     As for kill and yank, do realize that Emacs is old. I'm not sure cut
>> and paste was common editor parlance in those days.
> 
> Fair enough. But... pretty strange choice of terms, even if nothing
> existed before.

	No stranger than cut and paste. In emacs, deleting a bunch of text is
the same as putting it into the "clipboard" (kill buffer). So kill makes
sense, because that's really what you may be doing - just deleting text.
Yank simply yanks the text from the kill buffer where you want it.

	Cut? Makes sense for papers, but not for screens.

-- 
For a while, she had a boyfriend with a wooden leg. Then she broke it off.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

Post a reply to this message

Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:
>>> Invisible wrote:
>>> ...
>>>> Or you have a grid of numbers, and you want to add another column in 
>>>> the middle. Or stuff like that. Since Emacs == Lisp, it seems that 
>>>> you could probably spend 20 minutes writing some code that would do 
>>>> what you want. 
>>> ...
>>>
>>>
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Text-Based-Tables.html#Text-Based-Tables

>>
>>
>>
>> Close, but not quite what I was thinking of.
>>
>> I was thinking more like you have some text such as
>>
>>   case x of
>>     5 -> return [(1, 4), (2, 3)]
>>     6 -> return [(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 3)]
>>     7 -> return [(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4)]
>>
>> and you suddenly decide you need to change that to
>>
>>   case x of
>>     5 -> return $ Just [(1, 4), (2, 3)]
>>     6 -> return $ Just [(1, 5), (2, 4), (3, 3)]
>>     7 -> return $ Just [(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4)]
>>
>> It's kinda tedious to do this by hand. (Depending on just how many 
>> times you need to do it, obviously...)
> 
> Have a look at this:
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Rectangles.html
> 
> (The text cursor is the "point" and you can put a "mark" in the text 
> with C-space.)

So here's what you could do:

M-g g      // goto-line
2          // 2
C-right    // forward-word
C-right    // forward-word
C-space    // set-mark-command
down       // next-line
down       // next-line
C-x r t    // string-rectangle
  $ Just    //


-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:

> ^u 10 ^f

Actually, I've often wondered what such things as ^M are supposed to mean.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> I mean, if you're forced to use a console window to do something, then
> fair enough. But this is 2009. We have graphics systems capable of
> better. Why not make use of that fact?

	Umm...I'm a guy who still likes to read text in a console (I mean, a
_real_ console - not a terminal emulator). Ditto for writing. Perhaps
I'm too used to the "font" - growing up on DOS. I just never found a
graphical editor that appears as nice.

> So "C-u" actually means "Ctrl+U"?

	Yup. You'd know this had you spent a minute on the tutorial.

> Well, I don't know. SciTE is open-source. If you want to, it's perfectly
> possible to download the source code and modify it. But let's face it,

	But not easy. You have to do it in C++, and you have to get a good
understanding of the source code. Not (as much) so with Emacs. Not
having to recompile the whole thing to have your changes register is a
perk. Also, it's unlikely that newer Emacs versions will change your
customizations.

> who the hell is going to do that? Nobody. Similarly, Emacs lets you

	Yet, people do it all the time with Emacs. Maybe not your average user,
but I bet more power users customize emacs and write their own
functionality via Lisp than do SciTe users who change the source code.

> change absolutely anything [with the not inconsiderable detail that you
> don't have to recompile anything]. But only once you've read and
> memorised the entire source tree. How feasible is that, really?

	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!

-- 
For a while, she had a boyfriend with a wooden leg. Then she broke it off.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

Post a reply to this message

>> I mean, if you're forced to use a console window to do something, then
>> fair enough. But this is 2009. We have graphics systems capable of
>> better. Why not make use of that fact?
> 
> 	Umm...I'm a guy who still likes to read text in a console (I mean, a
> _real_ console - not a terminal emulator). Ditto for writing.

Good for you. I prefer something a little less clunky.

>> Well, I don't know. SciTE is open-source. If you want to, it's perfectly
>> possible to download the source code and modify it. But let's face it,
> 
> 	But not easy. You have to do it in C++, and you have to get a good
> understanding of the source code. Not (as much) so with Emacs. Not
> having to recompile the whole thing to have your changes register is a
> perk. Also, it's unlikely that newer Emacs versions will change your
> customizations.

I will admit, that's one of the irritating things with SciTE. Each new 
version, some of the settings have different names and/or work 
differently. (But the solution is just to always use the same version I 
guess.)

More irritating is that SciTE comes with support for about 35 languages, 
only 4 of which I actually want, but it's a pain to disable all the 
stuff I don't want.

>> change absolutely anything [with the not inconsiderable detail that you
>> don't have to recompile anything]. But only once you've read and
>> memorised the entire source tree. How feasible is that, really?
> 
> 	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.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> On some level, it's similar to how you configure SciTE - i.e., with a
> giant text file. The difference with Emacs is that you can write complex
> blobs of arbitrary executable code to define new functionallity. (It
> seems Warp has done this.) The similarity is that, like SciTE, it'll
> take you hours to figure out which secret hidden setting changes the
> thing that's annoying you. (Or even whether there *is* a setting to
> change a particular behaviour...)

	I really doubt it's as hard as you say. Emacs provides _lots_ of
general hooks for customization. At least, I've never heard an emacs
user claim that it was a pain to find anything he needed - I don't think
they have to go through much source code.

	All commands in Emacs (including cursor movements, etc) have a name (I
assume they're Lisp functions). It's fairly straightforward to find out
the name of any command (provided you know the command exists). You can
then use those commands to make a complex task, or modify them, or
simply rebind the keystroke to your own command.


-- 
For a while, she had a boyfriend with a wooden leg. Then she broke it off.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

Post a reply to this message

Tim Attwood wrote:
>>> emacs is a religion.  Notepad isn't.
> I've been using Notepad++ lately, it seems OK.
> It has context highlighting for a bunch of languages.
> http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
> 
> Didn't mice and pull-down menus make Emacs obsolete?

	Not really. A mouse usually has only 3 buttons (2 if you're unlucky).
And I doubt any menu system can hold all the commands that exist in
Emacs. Besides - harder to code macros if you have to do everything
using menus and mice.

-- 
For a while, she had a boyfriend with a wooden leg. Then she broke it off.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:08:50 -0500, Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com>
wrote:

>at least that makes sense ... even if the terms cut and paste didn't 
>exist back then.

I think that we have had "cut and paste" since at least the 1940's as it was a
printing term used in Phototypesetting. You would literally cut the text off a
page then paste it onto another page. I remember using hot wax for the pasting
in the 70's.

:P
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Tor Olav Kristensen escreveu:
> Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:
> ...
>> C-home        // beginning-of-buffer
>> down          // next-line
>> C-k           // kill-line
>> C-y           // yank
>> down          // next-line
>> C-x (         // start-kbd-macro
>> down          // next-line
>> C-e           // move-end-of-line
>> C-y           // yank
>> C-x )         // kmacro-end-macro
>> C-u           // universal-argument
>> 9             // 9
>> C-x e         // kmacro-end-and-call-macro
> ...
> 
> Btw.: Here's a quick Emacs reference:
> 
> http://www.math.uh.edu/~bgb/emacs_keys.html

I don't think Andrew bothers with that stuff.  He's just having some 
bashing fun and when it's over he'll turn back to his underpowered 
editor and lose hours upon hours of his life doing something by hand 
that exist as a few key presses in either emacs or vim.  Of course 
losing 30 minutes of his life to actually learn the precious basics of a 
  powerful editor is not worth it.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

Post a reply to this message

Invisible escreveu:
>>> change absolutely anything [with the not inconsiderable detail that you
>>> don't have to recompile anything]. But only once you've read and
>>> memorised the entire source tree. How feasible is that, really?
>>
>>     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.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

Post a reply to this message

Invisible escreveu:
>>> Er, no... HOW DO YOU TYPE THAT? What buttons is it actually telling 
>>> you to press?
>>
>> Control-u 10 Control-f
> 
> So, hold control, tap U, release control, tap 1 and then 0, hold 
> control, tap F, and then release control?

You sound like you never used keyboard shortcuts before.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Mueen Nawaz wrote:

> > ^u 10 ^f

> Actually, I've often wondered what such things as ^M are supposed to mean.

  You have clearly never used any unix.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Invisible escreveu:
>> I look at the text, not the window furniture. (I don't care much for 
>> the M$
>> window furniture anyway, but I definitely appear to be in a minority 
>> there ;-))
> 
> OK. But it would be nice if the text itself was crisp and readable, no?

Anti-aliasing means blur.  No AA means crisp. ;)

Anyway, if you go "emacs -nw" on a console, you may entirely drop the 
ancient GUI and use it on the console, which may pretty well mean having 
the AA fonts from your terminal setting, like in gnome-console.

>>> I mean, if you're forced to use a console window to do something, then
>>> fair enough. But this is 2009. We have graphics systems capable of
>>> better. Why not make use of that fact?

XEmacs took that route of embracing GUIs and their lifestyle.  It means 
there's tons of buttons and tons of menus inside menus without end. 
GUIs work when you have limited software like notepad.  When you have 
tons of features like Emacs and IDEs, all those buttons begin to get in 
the way.  Ever looked into Eclipse?

>> Because it's not relevant? Most people who would benefit from using 
>> something
>> like emacs probably don't give a monkeys about how it looks.
> 
> Funny, each time I set up SciTE, the first thing I do is change *all* 
> the fonts to monospace, and then fiddle with the sizing so it's 
> appropriate for the resolution of monitor I'm using (and how far away 
> I'm sat). And then I turn on the line numbering. And line wrapping. (The 
> kind where it shows you where the wrapped lines are, not the kind where 
> it actually inserts newline characters.)
> 
> Being stuck with one ugly terminal font would just annoy me.
> 
>> In any case, I think
>> a black background and fixed-width text is much more suitable for 
>> programming
>> than a wysiwyg word processor.
> 
> No sensible person programs with a word processor. It's the wrong tool. 

Yet I've seen coworkers typing SQL in Word.  Yes, it's insane and 
depressing.

> But there are studies that show that black-on-white is easier to read 
> than white-on-black, and I'd prefer to be able to change it.

I enjoy cyan-on-black more. :)

> 
>>>> C = ctrl
>>> So "C-u" actually means "Ctrl+U"?
>>
>> Aye. Again, I think it's just an old notation.
> 
> OK, fair enough.
> 
> By the way... what kind of keyboard actually has a Meta key?

In modern PC keyboards it binds to Alt.

For historical reasons, Meta is maintained despite being a key only 
existing in ancient computer keyboards.  Emacs is from that era and 
despite evolving through the years, still uses ancient terminology, like 
buffers instead of tabs.

Anyway, without Meta, the emacs command M-x would lose it's meaning. ;)

> Emacs is a Lisp interpretter running a text editor application written 
> in Lisp. If you just want to change some setting, you can probably get 
> away with adjusting a variable. But if you want to alter something there 
> isn't a setting for... you need to modify the source code.

Which is in Lisp.  Not only variables, you can add hooks too. :)

> seems Warp has done this.) The similarity is that, like SciTE, it'll 
> take you hours to figure out which secret hidden setting changes the 
> thing that's annoying you. (Or even whether there *is* a setting to 
> change a particular behaviour...)

Small baby steps on the manual over a few months can do wonders.  Over 
the years and you get a new Emacs guru. :)

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

Post a reply to this message

Mike Raiford escreveu:
> Invisible wrote:
>>
>> Actually, it appears that kill = cut and yank = paste. (WTF?)
>>
> 
> Yeah, that's pretty screwy terminology. Why not use terminology like 
> delete, copy and insert?

Because it's geeky software in the same humorous way of nerdy MIT 
tradition, where puns acronyms abound.  Why have boring enterprise-ready 
names?

> Interestingly, Visual Studio has Emacs emulation. I don't know how far 
> it goes, though. But, I suppose if you're used to doing things the Emacs 
> way it could be very useful.

Yes, a very good thing when you're trying to bring C++ die-hards over to 
your product.  I used it a bit and realized they provided even cyclic 
buffers.  Funny thing is that they don't seem to have that functionality 
available by default.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

Post a reply to this message

Stephen escreveu:
> On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:08:50 -0500, Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> at least that makes sense ... even if the terms cut and paste didn't 
>> exist back then.
> 
> I think that we have had "cut and paste" since at least the 1940's as it was a
> printing term used in Phototypesetting. You would literally cut the text off a
> page then paste it onto another page. I remember using hot wax for the pasting
> in the 70's.

whoa!  You're... an experienced man. :)

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:
> 
> I think that we have had "cut and paste" since at least the 1940's as it was a
> printing term used in Phototypesetting. You would literally cut the text off a
> page then paste it onto another page. I remember using hot wax for the pasting
> in the 70's.

Sooo... what was the justification for Yank and Kill? Just confusing 
terms to keep the neophytes away, then?


-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

Mueen Nawaz wrote:

> 
> 	Not really. A mouse usually has only 3 buttons (2 if you're unlucky).
> And I doubt any menu system can hold all the commands that exist in
> Emacs. Besides - harder to code macros if you have to do everything
> using menus and mice.
> 

Or one button if you're really unlucky.

Isn't this what scripting engines are for, though? Many programs have 
hundreds of commands, not all are accessible by the keyboard or menu 
system or mouse clicks.

I don't doubt that Emacs is incredibly powerful... But, it's not always 
the appropriate tool.

-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:36:40 -0500, Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Stephen wrote:
>> 
>> I think that we have had "cut and paste" since at least the 1940's as it was a
>> printing term used in Phototypesetting. You would literally cut the text off a
>> page then paste it onto another page. I remember using hot wax for the pasting
>> in the 70's.
>
>Sooo... what was the justification for Yank and Kill? Just confusing 
>terms to keep the neophytes away, then?

I don't know but Goggle says
http://www.xemacs.org/Documentation/packages/html/calc_17.html

I'm not and never have been a programmer. Every line's a struggle :(
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:37:57 -0300, nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

>Stephen escreveu:
>> On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:08:50 -0500, Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> at least that makes sense ... even if the terms cut and paste didn't 
>>> exist back then.
>> 
>> I think that we have had "cut and paste" since at least the 1940's as it was a
>> printing term used in Phototypesetting. You would literally cut the text off a
>> page then paste it onto another page. I remember using hot wax for the pasting
>> in the 70's.
>
>whoa!  You're... an experienced man. :)


I'll sell you some :)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>> Actually, I've often wondered what such things as ^M are supposed to mean.
> 
>   You have clearly never used any unix.

...and? :-}

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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nemesis wrote:

> I don't think Andrew bothers with that stuff.  He's just having some 
> bashing fun and when it's over he'll turn back to his underpowered 
> editor and lose hours upon hours of his life doing something by hand 
> that exist as a few key presses in either emacs or vim.  Of course 
> losing 30 minutes of his life to actually learn the precious basics of a 
> powerful editor is not worth it.

One could make similar sarcastic remarks about the population at large 
refusing to learn Haskell even though it is clearly and obviously the 
most powerful programming language ever devised. Not that such remarks 
are going to change anybody's minds...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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