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From: src@scuzzy.in-berlin.de (Heiko Blume)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: New Version of CRISP Editor Available
Message-ID: <1991Apr04.231820.13338@scuzzy.in-berlin.de>
Date: 4 Apr 91 23:18:20 GMT
References: <40804@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Contributed Software
Lines: 103

msb@cup.portal.com (Mark Steven Bilk) writes:

>A comparison of CRISP and EMACS:

which of the 1000 emacs variants are you talking about?

>   EMACS requires at least twice as many keystrokes for many commands, and the
>   letters chosen often have little relation to the function performed.

see below.

>*  CRISP allows very convenient cursor movement using the keypad arrow keys on
>   the Sun keyboard (also on the PC and others).  You can move to:

>      Left and right one character
>      Up and down one line
>      Left and right one word (Ctrl-Left and -Right)
>      Beginning and end of the line (Home and End)
>      Page up and down (PgUp and PgDn)
>      Beginning and end of the file (Ctrl-PgUp and -PgDn)
>      Top and bottom of the window (Ctrl-Home and -End)
>      Left and right edges of the window (Shift-Home and -End)

if you try GNU emacs, you'll discover that it's configurable to do
all that and much more versatile moving, especially context sensitive
things 'End' goes to the end of line on the first press, to the end
of paragraph on the second and to the end of buffer on the third press.
if you don't like some key mapping, i.e. Cntrl-x-w for write-file, just
go ahead and bind alt-w (or F1 or whatever) to that function, no problem!

>   EMACS only uses the cursor keys for left and right one character, up and
>   down one line.  The other functions are performed with control-letter or
>   meta-letter keys (with hard-to-remember letters).  This is supposed to allow
>   EMACS to run on the dumbest of terminals, such as a teletype, which lack a
>   cursor keypad.
>   

that's true, you can run it on (nearly) any type of terminal. however,
since it can not know beforehand what your personal terminal 
produces when you press ctrl-meta-shift-left-R9, you must tell it!
fortunately that's quite easy...

>   My judgement is that if you have such a crippled keyboard, or a display that
>   shows only 25 lines, or some other impediment to good ergonomic
>   human-computer interface, you should GET RID OF IT!

sounds more like 'crippled' administrators that don't provide a proper
default configuration for their users.
btw: GNU emacs can manage 300 by 300 character windows under X by default.
you can compile it with higher values, if your screen is big enough for that.


>  If you are a
>   professional programmer, your keyboard, screen, editor, and compiler are
>   your most essential tools; you need and deserve good ones.  (By the way, I
>   don't mean to be a GNU-basher; I use gcc and love it.)

jesus! PLEASE try this in GNU emacs :
[say, you have bla.c, blub.c and a Makefile that makes prgm out of both.]

cntrl-x cntrl-f bla.c
test()
{
	int blub;
	printf("deliberate error!);
}

[change something in this buffer]

Meta-x compile

[emacs now asks 'save bla.c ?' - answer 'y'. you'll get a new window
 with gcc's output. it will complain of course. now type]

cntrl-x `

[this will parse the gcc output and will take your cursor to the erroneous
line in the bla.c buffer. emacs will also load the the file(s) that contain
errors and move the cursor to the offending line when you enter cntrl-x ` ]

you can also run gdb inside emacs etc...

>   Another EMACS aggravation: when you cursor down to the bottom line of the
>   window, and then down one more line, does the window scroll up one line,
>   leaving the cursor at the bottom?  No; it jerks up half the height of the
>   window, causing you to lose your place in the text!

again, that's configurable. EVERYTHING in emacs is configurable.

>   What finally convinced me not to use EMACS is that it does NOT distinguish
>   the selected region on the screen in any way.  Yes, folks, incredible as it
>   seems, the selected region looks just the same as the rest of the text.  It
>   isn't in reverse video, or underlined, or blinking, or a different color.
>   So how do you know where it is?  The EMACS manual says you are supposed to
>   *remember*.
>   

try epoch, the X Windowized emacs.
-- 
   Heiko Blume <-+-> src@scuzzy.in-berlin.de <-+-> (+49 30) 691 88 93 [voice!]
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