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Re: Casting as wide a net as possible
From: |
Adrian . B . Robert |
Subject: |
Re: Casting as wide a net as possible |
Date: |
Mon, 14 Dec 2015 15:05:19 +0200 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.5 (windows-nt) |
John Wiegley <address@hidden> writes:
>>>>>> Drew Adams <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> My only point is that Lisp features really do make Emacs what it is. To
>> point out what Emacs is necessarily means pointing out some of those
>> features (IMO).
>
> I agree. The things that make Emacs great:
>
> 1. Highly consistent syntax.
> 2. Self-documenting.
> 3. Integrated debugger.
> 4. Ability to re-evaluate functions in a running environment.
> (i.e., everything that made Lisp Machines great)
> 5. Natural syntax for scoping resources (`with-temp-buffer ...')
> 6. Large and well documented API
> 7. Stable and mature concepts evolved over decades
> 8. Huge, HUGE community of cargo-cultable examples, for those just learning
These are all good, but, aside from #2 and #3, relatively deep and
sophisticated. The simpler aspects that keep driving me back to use Emacs
even as good IDEs and other tools proliferate, and the reasons I encourage
others to try it:
1. Do things that often *can't be done* in other editors:
- *everything* from the keyboard
- fast, low-overhead keyboard navigation (faster than any IDE)
- split windows for multiple spots in file or multiple files
- clean, complete l10n handling
- regex search/replace
- keyboard macros
2. Do things *more easily* than other editors
- discovery: M-x command completion and shortcut hinting (part
of self-documenting, means can learn to use keyboard easily)
- swiss-army knife: learn once, edit many types of content
(rather than dealing with a new tool for every job)
- works same on any desktop box
- works same on remote *nix machines as in a local desktop
(rather than suffering with vi etc.)
- emacsclient (big when working with command-line shells in a
desktop environment)
3. Better *customization* than other editors
- menu options plus straightforward simple customization
- full programmability for complex cases
- *easily* migrate customization from environment to environment
Overall, due to excellent design philosophy and a highly extensible
foundation, Emacs delivers an unparalleled environment for focusing on what
you want to do, rather than spending time fiddling and fighting with your
tools.
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, (continued)
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, David Kastrup, 2015/12/10
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, Eli Zaretskii, 2015/12/10
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, David Kastrup, 2015/12/10
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, John Wiegley, 2015/12/10
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, David Kastrup, 2015/12/10
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, Richard Stallman, 2015/12/11
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, covici, 2015/12/10
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, Marcin Borkowski, 2015/12/10
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible,
Adrian . B . Robert <=
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, raman, 2015/12/14
- Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, John Wiegley, 2015/12/14
Re: Casting as wide a net as possible (was: First draft of the Emacs website), Richard Stallman, 2015/12/11
Re: Casting as wide a net as possible, Filipp Gunbin, 2015/12/14