Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bbn!jr@bbn.com
From: jr@bbn.com (John Robinson)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs
Subject: Re: Various small comments about Emacs (moved from the end of a bug report)
Message-ID: <41169@bbn.COM>
Date: 9 Jun 89 15:32:10 GMT
References: <1989JE8.090959,4635;ULMO@SSYX.UCSC.EDU>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: jr@bbn.com (John Robinson)
Organization: BBN Systems and Technologies Corporation, Cambridge MA
Lines: 61
In-reply-to: ulmo@ssyx.ucsc.edu

In article <1989JE8.090959,4635;ULMO@SSYX.UCSC.EDU>, ulmo@ssyx writes:
>Does anyone have any patches or modifications for GNU Emacs which will make it
>case insensitive in all appropriate locations?

case-fold-search for searches.  file lookup will have to retain case
sensitivity - it's in the filesystem.  Not usre what other locations
you have in mind.

>					         (I think it's stupid Unix and
>C are case sensitive at all, and have often wondered how easy it would be to
>fix that on a system of my own).

Maybe in GNU

>- Using ln to link a file and then edit it, Emacs will save the old version

Variables backup-by-copying, backup-by-copying-when-linked,
backup-by-copying-when-mismatch should get you what you want.

>- Versions.  How easy is it to ask Emacs to use a new name for each version
>  of a file I make

The variable is version-control

>- Multitasking.  Arggh!  Why do I have to be stuck with one command line
>  in an otherwise fairly powerful system?

Run a job-control capable shell in a shell window;
explicit-shell-file-name variable.  & at the end of a command line
puts it in background.

>- Incremental compilation (automatic).  What's this thing about me
>  having to manually type byte-compile?

Function byte-compile-directory will help.  put dot after the defun
and type ^X^E to redefine it, byt there is no "byte-compile this form
and then eval it", though this could be consed up from what's there I
think.

>I guess I just haven't used Emacs for 20 years and gotten used to
>The Way it Should Be, so some of this is not exactly right on target.

It is still gonna be a few years until the Unix world catches up to
where ITS, Tenex, Multics and Tops-20 were 15-20 years ago!  Look to
the FSF folks to maybe do this with GNU Unix, if it ever materializes.

>Also, is there a binary mode, complete with various Hex and Ascii
>translation guides?  This would greatly simplify the task
>of people like me who like to look and modify a file in its full 8 bits.

emacs can edit anything, though it can be a bit cumbersome.  There is
a mode that makes it a little easier - it generates a ascii picture of
the file in hex which you edit, then it turns the ascii back to binary
when you write it out (I guess).  Contact Keith Gabryelski,
<ag@elgar.cts.com>.

You'll become a believer sooner or later.

--
/jr, nee John Robinson   What a waste it is to lose one's mind--or not
jr@bbn.com or bbn!jr      to have a mind.  How true that is. -Dan Quayle