Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!kth!enea!sommar
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: UNIX needs a real text editor
Message-ID: <4407@enea.se>
Date: 3 Apr 89 21:35:06 GMT
Organization: ENEA DATA AB, Sweden
Lines: 40

Per Abrahamsen (amanda@iesd.dk) writes:
>Why invent a new language, when an existing (and widely used!)
>language like lisp fits perfecly. If you are a programmer, you will
>probably want to learn lisp anyway.

I must admit one thing: I have programmed for eight years and 
four years professionally, and I have never felt a longing
to learn Lisp. Doesn't seem to be the langauges for the applications
I'm usually involved with. The only reason to learn it would be 
to convert my Emacs profile to GNU. (And since I have played with 
Goslings MacLisp I have some notion on it.)
  Just face it, Lisp *is* a strange notation for many programmers. 


>> PROCEDURE split_window
>>
>> [ Long TPU procedure in a extended BASIC-style language deleted... -Pa ]
>
>Here is the same procedure in emacs lisp :-)
>...
>  (split-window nil nil))

Another thing I don't like with Emacs. There are just too many things
built into it. TPU offers you a much smaller set of built-ins, which
allows you define your higher-level concepts as you want them. Emacs
has a word concept, but of no use for me, since it's assuming thing
I don't agree with. (Don't tell mw about syntax tables. Whether they
are useful or not, it was easier write a move-by-word on character level
instead.) So take all that extra stuff away, and get a smaller editor.
  It should be added that TPU also suffers from invalid assumption, 
particulary when it comes to case-insensitive searches.

>Emacs is not optimized for VMS or VAX.

So what is it optimzed for? Some weird Lisp machine far from common
use? It was not a VAX running Unix anyway.
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
I used to say "It could have been worse, it could have been Pepsi",
then I drank a Diet Coke...