Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site kestrel.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!Glacier!kestrel!king
From: king@kestrel.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: To GNU or not to GNU?
Message-ID: <1838@kestrel.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 16:01:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: kestrel.1838
Posted: Mon Oct 14 16:01:46 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Oct-85 05:50:50 EDT
Organization: Kestrel Institute, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 53


I'm posting this publicly because my site can't send to bocklin.UUCP
for some reason.

To: whm@bocklin@udel-relay
Subject: how to simulate CONS reasonably
   

	 
	"It has a real Lisp (cons and all)." -- To tell the truth, I'm
	not too wild about Lisp.  Sure, Unipress Emacs has only Mock Lisp,
	but I've developed a unique solution for this particular problem
	and I consider this advantage of GNU Emacs over vanilla Unipress
	Emacs to be non-relevant (for my purposes).

Do you have a reasonable solution?  When we were running mucklisp I
did it by using magic character strings - it turned out to be
extremely slow.  I'd be interested in hearing your solution.


An advantage of GNUmacs is that it has version control in release
16-60.  This means that a user-controllable number of old versions of
the file are kept, rather than just one.




The cons advantage is non-negligible.  I tried to write a version
control package for unipress emacs and gave up after I had given it a
moderate amount of effort.  I then took a no-version-control screw
while running GNU emacs, so I said to myself "alright, not having VC
cost me three hours, so I'll spend three hours building a version
control."  No problem - I had enough time left over to make it pretty,
and sent it in to RMS.

This incident demonstrates three advantages of GNUmacs:

1> it now has VC.  Unipress emacs has had it on their wish list since
12/84 (I asked for it to be put there).

2> When you want to change system behavior, you can.

3> You've got a community working for you.


-dick


PS: when we got our copy we made both available to the user community
and counted the uses.  After a week nobody used Unipress emacs.  We
removed that option.  Nobody complained.


"None of this represents the opinion of anybody but myself."