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From: ram-ashwin@YALE.ARPA (Ashwin Ram)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Aegis Vs. Unix
Message-ID: <8706091408.AA02006@yale-eli.arpa>
Date: Tue, 9-Jun-87 10:08:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: yale-eli.8706091408.AA02006
Posted: Tue Jun  9 10:08:06 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jun-87 02:44:15 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 42

>  Date: Mon, 08 Jun 87 23:28:17 PDT
>  From: srt@CS.UCLA.EDU
>
>  Robert Reed writes:
>
>     One very quickly runs out of gas strictly within the DM.  Its editing
>     facilities are a joke.  I'm sure the DM editor satisfies novice text
>     entry...
>
>  I don't think the DM editor is a joke, though it obviously is not nearly as
>  flexible as a powerful Emacs.  Many of the most common editor functions are
>  supplied in the DM, and the most important customizations can be handled
>  (key binding, macros).  It is annoying not to be able to write
>  paren-balancing or "electric-C" mode, but I think Apollo made the right
>  choice in providing a simple, extensible and blindingly fast text editor
>  rather than trying to implement some kind of mega-editor in an attempt to
>  please everyone.

I totally disagree.  You're thinking of Emacs as a "single window terminal
editor", for which case your arguments hold.  Imagine, however, that the DM
was one unified Emacs, each DM window being like an Emacs window but without
the dumb terminal restrictions, the DM command window being the minibuffer,
and so on.  You still get cut and paste between windows, you still get
independent shells running in independent windows, you still get input pads
to those shells, and the rest of the things you and I both love.  But you
also get different Emacs-like modes in those windows, customizable keys *and*
keymaps, local/mode-specific key bindings, extensibility (the DM command
language is surely a joke), electric modes, and so on.

You get an Emacs running directly on the graphics of the Apollos, utilizing
the full capabilities of these slick machines, not one you have to
laboriously start up in a vt100 window.  I think this can be blindingly fast
without sacrificing *real* editing facilities.

I don't think the DM editor even satisfies novice text entry.  It doesn't
even have word wrap at the end of the line, let alone a decent undo function.

-- Ashwin Ram --

ARPA:    Ram-Ashwin@yale
UUCP:    {decvax,linus,seismo}!yale!Ram-Ashwin
BITNET:  Ram@yalecs