Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!nelson From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: Re: Okay--I give; why is Emacs so great? Message-ID: Date: 6 Jan 89 02:43:42 GMT References: <490@blake.acs.washington.edu> Sender: news@sun.soe.clarkson.edu Reply-To: nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu Organization: Clarkson University, Postdam NY Lines: 29 In-reply-to: mcglk@blake.acs.washington.edu's message of 5 Jan 89 20:30:37 GMT In article <490@blake.acs.washington.edu> mcglk@blake.acs.washington.edu (Ken McGlothlen) writes: LISP is nice. But you hardly need LISP for a programmable editor. The designers could have come up with a somewhat abbreviated system to handle most needs--one that could have fit into a third or so of the space. Sure, it's spiffy--but is it so useful that it's mandatory? Or am I completely missing the point? Well, speaking as the author of one of the free PC Emacses (Freemacs), I can attest to the fact that a somewhat abbreviated system is probably insufficient. I originally thought that 64K of code space for Freemacs would be sufficient. Then I started bumping into that limit. So now I have 256K of code space. Now the limiting factor is the capital letter used to designate libraries (yes, I know, I was young and foolish when I decided on *that* convention.) I have also worked with MicroEmacs, and it's macro language is a hack. Syntacticly it's very messy. I have also worked with Bill Frolik on an editor for the HP-3000 that had a macro language. The only acceptable solution (IMHO) is to *start* with a programming language and add editor primitives, rather than start with an editor and add a programming language to it. So LISP is a system that is probably going to have enough power. Remember that rms wrote TOPS-20 Emacs, and is conversant with the problems of THAT editor. -- --russ (nelson@clutx [.bitnet | .clarkson.edu]) "I saved the whales!" - Rebecca L. Nelson, 3.5 years old, on receiving her Christmas present of a whale "adoption" certificate. Bless her liberal heart.