Path: utzoo!telly!attcan!utgpu!watmath!uunet!mcsun!unido!pcsbst!jkh From: jkh@meepmeep.pcs.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: Why does emacs do so much that is not editing? Message-ID: Date: 29 Aug 89 05:41:20 GMT References: <19115@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu> <59085@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Sender: news@pcsbst.UUCP Organization: PCS Computer Systems, GmbH Lines: 43 In-reply-to: lum@armadillo.cis.ohio-state.edu's message of 28 Aug 89 21:00:04 GMT >A sufficent explanation of the difference in system philosophy >between the UNIX operating system and the Emacs virtual operating >system is, I think, inherent in the difference in system history: > > UNIX grew up on a very small machine, the PDP-11 > > EMACS grew up on a very large machine, the PDP-10 Argh. This is taking a side effect of its design philosophy and stating it AS the design philosophy. While it's certainly true that a large part of UNIX's power and appeal lies in its ability to string a lot of well isolated tools together, it's a dangerous trap to assume that ALL tools should be similarly isolated to correctly follow the Unix "philosophy" (small, elegant and ignorant). While a good many tasks can be performed using this approach, many actually require moving along opposite lines. Seamless integration, rather that defined isolation, seems to be one of the new targets that software developers are trying to hit. The fact that people are putting down large chunks of change for packages like "Alis", despite their, er, rather poor design and implementation is a case-in-point. Calling EMACS an "Editor" is like calling Unix a "dispatcher". It's an environment, and an exceptionally powerful and extensible one at that. I can read my news, transfering any interesting articles to an MH folder, or stripping the headers off of a shell archive in-situ and unpacking it on the fly. If I decided to then compile it I could do so, tracking and fixing any errors along the way. If it all proved to be too much, I could grab the error messages and stuff them into an informative mail message to the author, all without leaving emacs! I won't even go into the value of having emacs while developing Lisp/C code. Emacs is an adjunct to Unix, not just another subordinate tool. Jordan Hubbard -- PCS Computer Systeme GmbH, Munich, West Germany UUCP: pyramid!pcsbst!jkh jkh@meepmeep.pcs.com EUNET: unido!pcsbst!jkh ARPA: jkh@violet.berkeley.edu or hubbard@decwrl.dec.com