I am new to Lisp and looking for a modern graphical IDE for Windows. I
tried Lisp in a Box with Emacs... I'm sure for people experienced in
emacs it is very powerful, but I'm looking for a more modern IDE than
that. I'd prefer a free one, but if I have to, I don't mind paying for
one.
On 16 Apr 2005 08:28:05 -0700, ·········@gmail.com" <········@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am new to Lisp and looking for a modern graphical IDE for Windows.
> I tried Lisp in a Box with Emacs... I'm sure for people experienced
> in emacs it is very powerful, but I'm looking for a more modern IDE
> than that. I'd prefer a free one, but if I have to, I don't mind
> paying for one.
You should check out LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp. They both
offer free trial versions.
<http://www.lispworks.com/>
<http://www.franz.com/>
Their IDEs might not /look/ as "modern" as, say, Visual Studio but
both are quite powerful.
Cheers,
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 17:35:08 +0200, <········@agharta.de> wrote:
>
>
> On 16 Apr 2005 08:28:05 -0700, ·········@gmail.com" <········@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I am new to Lisp and looking for a modern graphical IDE for Windows.
>> I tried Lisp in a Box with Emacs... I'm sure for people experienced
>> in emacs it is very powerful, but I'm looking for a more modern IDE
>> than that. I'd prefer a free one, but if I have to, I don't mind
>> paying for one.
>
> You should check out LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp. They both
> offer free trial versions.
As does Corman Lisp, plus with Corman, you get source code.
--
Everyman has three hearts;
one to show the world, one to show friends, and one only he knows.
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 13:10:43 -0700, GP lisper <········@CloudDancer.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 17:35:08 +0200, <········@agharta.de> wrote:
>>
>> On 16 Apr 2005 08:28:05 -0700, ·········@gmail.com" <········@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I am new to Lisp and looking for a modern graphical IDE for
>>> Windows. I tried Lisp in a Box with Emacs... I'm sure for people
>>> experienced in emacs it is very powerful, but I'm looking for a
>>> more modern IDE than that. I'd prefer a free one, but if I have
>>> to, I don't mind paying for one.
>>
>> You should check out LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp. They both
>> offer free trial versions.
>
> As does Corman Lisp, plus with Corman, you get source code.
The OP asked for a modern graphical IDE - that's why I deliberately
didn't include Corman Lisp. YMMV, of course.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 22:30:07 +0200, <········@agharta.de> wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 13:10:43 -0700, GP lisper <········@CloudDancer.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 17:35:08 +0200, <········@agharta.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 16 Apr 2005 08:28:05 -0700, ·········@gmail.com" <········@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am new to Lisp and looking for a modern graphical IDE for
>>>> Windows. I tried Lisp in a Box with Emacs... I'm sure for people
>>>> experienced in emacs it is very powerful, but I'm looking for a
>>>> more modern IDE than that. I'd prefer a free one, but if I have
>>>> to, I don't mind paying for one.
>>>
>>> You should check out LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp. They both
>>> offer free trial versions.
>>
>> As does Corman Lisp, plus with Corman, you get source code.
>
> The OP asked for a modern graphical IDE - that's why I deliberately
> didn't include Corman Lisp. YMMV, of course.
Well, I haven't spent much time with Corman, other than the run the
SDL examples and read that it is fully interfaced with the Win32
libraries. I suppose that is an extra step away from the other
commercials.
--
Everyman has three hearts;
one to show the world, one to show friends, and one only he knows.
"Edi Weitz" <········@agharta.de> wrote in message
··················@agharta.de...
> On 16 Apr 2005 08:28:05 -0700, ·········@gmail.com" <········@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I am new to Lisp and looking for a modern graphical IDE for
>> Windows..<snip>
...if I have to, I don't mind
>> paying for one.
>
> You should check out LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp. They both
> offer free trial versions.
I've been reading a bit for breadth about Lisp and Emacs. The Lispworks
editor seems to be built around emacs, and supports some extensibility
through the ability to add major/minor modes, create editor functions and
bind functions to keys. Some folks seem to work from emacs as an
extraordinarily central environment. I gather that one can read news, email
and perform many shell functions from within the editor itself. Is it
possible to extend the functions of the Lispworks editor to this level? If
so, it could be a place to plug in the nifty spam filter in Peter Seibel's
new book--not sure though. Comments? Resources, anyone? This seems like a
fun place to start learning about both Lisp and Emacs, with a payoff in
utility.
.
"Joe Manby" <······@alltel.net> writes:
> and perform many shell functions from within the editor itself. Is it
> possible to extend the functions of the Lispworks editor to this level? If
I seem to remember that the editor of some commercial Lisps
(LispWorks? MCL?) comes with source code.
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (see also http://clrfi.alu.org):
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
"Paolo Amoroso" <·······@mclink.it> wrote in message
···················@plato.moon.paoloamoroso.it...
> "Joe Manby" <······@alltel.net> writes:
>
>> and perform many shell functions from within the editor itself. Is it
>> possible to extend the functions of the Lispworks editor to this level?
>> If
>
> I seem to remember that the editor of some commercial Lisps
> (LispWorks? MCL?) comes with source code.
>(Edi Weitz)
>Both.
Hmm. Checked all directories in the installation I have. The only relevent
source files are in the examples/editor directory, and they make use of only
editor commands (one is to split a line). All else is fsl. I have 4.1.0.0.
Perhaps you are referring to the trial version? At any rate, it seems clear
to me that my energies should be spent writing some code and becoming
familiar with this editor.
Your (indirect) point is well taken--the gui is nice, but if I want to
learn, open source implementations and a group like this, which is seemingly
willing to put up with tyros as long as they are demonstrating an effort,
might be the way to go. Thanks for the response, Paolo and Edi.
"Too new to have a significant quote in a tagline....."
On Sun, 17 Apr 2005 13:01:22 -0500, "Joe Manby" <······@alltel.net> wrote:
> Hmm. Checked all directories in the installation I have. The only
> relevent source files are in the examples/editor directory, and they
> make use of only editor commands (one is to split a line). All else
> is fsl. I have 4.1.0.0.
I think they started adding the editor source code to the distribution
with version 4.3 or 4.4.
On my machine (LWW 4.4.5) the source is in
C:\Program Files\LispWorks\lib\4-4-0-0\src\editor\
> Perhaps you are referring to the trial version?
No, IIRC the editor source comes only with the Professional or
Enterprise Edition.
Cheers,
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
On Sun, 17 Apr 2005 11:42:56 +0200, Paolo Amoroso <·······@mclink.it> wrote:
> I seem to remember that the editor of some commercial Lisps
> (LispWorks? MCL?) comes with source code.
Both.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
"Joe Manby" <······@alltel.net> writes:
> "Edi Weitz" <········@agharta.de> wrote in message
> ··················@agharta.de...
> > On 16 Apr 2005 08:28:05 -0700, ·········@gmail.com" <········@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> I am new to Lisp and looking for a modern graphical IDE for
> >> Windows..<snip>
> ...if I have to, I don't mind
> >> paying for one.
> >
> > You should check out LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp. They both
> > offer free trial versions.
>
> I've been reading a bit for breadth about Lisp and Emacs. The Lispworks
> editor seems to be built around emacs, and supports some extensibility
> through the ability to add major/minor modes, create editor functions and
> bind functions to keys. Some folks seem to work from emacs as an
> extraordinarily central environment. I gather that one can read news, email
> and perform many shell functions from within the editor itself. Is it
> possible to extend the functions of the Lispworks editor to this level? If
> so, it could be a place to plug in the nifty spam filter in Peter Seibel's
> new book--not sure though. Comments? Resources, anyone? This seems like a
> fun place to start learning about both Lisp and Emacs, with a payoff in
> utility.
Hemlock is a free Emacs-like editor that comes with CMUCL. It has
mail and news modes, which should still work, although it's possible
they've suffered bitrot, since I'm not sure anyone uses Hemlock as a
MUA or newsreader anymore.
"Thomas F. Burdick" <···@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote in message
····················@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU...
> "Joe Manby" <······@alltel.net> writes:
>
>> "Edi Weitz" <········@agharta.de> wrote in message
>> ··················@agharta.de...
>> > On 16 Apr 2005 08:28:05 -0700, ·········@gmail.com"
>> > <········@gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> I am new to Lisp and looking for a modern graphical IDE for
>> >> Windows..<snip>
>> ...if I have to, I don't mind
>> >> paying for one.
>> >
>> > You should check out LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp. They both
>> > offer free trial versions.
>>
>> I've been reading a bit for breadth about Lisp and Emacs. The
>> Lispworks
>> editor seems to be built around emacs, and supports some extensibility
>> through the ability to add major/minor modes, create editor functions and
>> bind functions to keys. Some folks seem to work from emacs as an
>> extraordinarily central environment. I gather that one can read news,
>> email
>> and perform many shell functions from within the editor itself. Is it
>> possible to extend the functions of the Lispworks editor to this level?
>> If
>> so, it could be a place to plug in the nifty spam filter in Peter
>> Seibel's
>> new book--not sure though. Comments? Resources, anyone? This seems
>> like a
>> fun place to start learning about both Lisp and Emacs, with a payoff in
>> utility.
>
> Hemlock is a free Emacs-like editor that comes with CMUCL. It has
> mail and news modes, which should still work, although it's possible
> they've suffered bitrot, since I'm not sure anyone uses Hemlock as a
> MUA or newsreader anymore.
Well, I've Googled into c.l.l.'s past and have found enough context to
realize that I'm on the leading edge of a curve. The Lispworks editor has
more 'under the hood' (this whole car analogy just keeps on growing....)
than I could have imagined for something with such an innocuous name:
"Editor." My concept of a programing environment seems to be changing very
quickly. I've gone from thinking "editor" to "environment" to "interface
that can be glued to almost anything I want to muck with" ; )
Although the Lispworks version I have does not have source for its edotor,
I'm told the latest release does have editor source--and that the docs have
greatly improved as well. It is too early for me to make an informed
decision, but everyone has been helpful in pointing me to resources and in
answering specific questions. While Googling the past, I was amazed to find
that some of the patient and knowedgeable voices here today have been here
for a number of years. I don't believe that so many experienced folks would
tolerate or evangelize Emacs unless there was some genuine utility there.
As for how pretty it is--pretty is as pretty does. Even the coolest splash
screen gets old when you want to just play the game.
> Although the Lispworks version I have does not have source for its edotor,
> I'm told the latest release does have editor source--and that the docs have
> greatly improved as well. It is too early for me to make an informed
> decision, but everyone has been helpful in pointing me to resources and in
> answering specific questions. While Googling the past, I was amazed to find
> that some of the patient and knowedgeable voices here today have been here
> for a number of years. I don't believe that so many experienced folks would
> tolerate or evangelize Emacs unless there was some genuine utility there.
> As for how pretty it is--pretty is as pretty does. Even the coolest splash
> screen gets old when you want to just play the game.
With some effort, you can do a fairly good job of supporting Emacs and
non-Emacs editing styles with the LispWorks editor. The emulation still
needs some work to make hard core Mac and Windows users happy, but it is
getting better with each release. And with CAPI you can build whatever
interface you want around the editor component. See my web site below
for an example of an application built on the LispWorks editor.
John DeSoi, Ph.D.
http://pgedit.com/
Power Tools for PostgreSQL
onlyafly:
I hear you. I'm very new to Lisp too, and while I don't have any really
satisfactory solutions, I'll pass on my experience to you.
You really need to have something that :
1) indents Lisp correctly
2) does basic things in a way already familiar to you, so you can focus on
learning Lisp.
Unfortunately, no free editor I found so far passes both tests. Emacs (with
SLIME) indents Lisp like a champ, but is completely alien, as you saw.
Though you can get Emacs to do cut-copy-paste, Undo and a few other
keystrokes in the Windows fashion by following the directions here:
http://www.cua.dk/cua.html That will help a lot.
VisualClisp is reasonable comfortable environment, but doesn't indent Lisp
correctly.
I used VisualClisp for a while, but the lack of Lisp indentation renders it
useless. I've started using Emacs (by installing Lisp in a Box), though I'm
not happy about it. It is *powerful* in a very limited sense of the word,
sort of like driving a car by separately steering each wheel. With a car
like that you could park in places no one else could - after you became
skillful. In the meantime, you're a disaster.
But Lisp has been worth it, and with the keystroke mapping thing I linked to
above, Emacs is tolerable.
Good luck!
Ethan
<········@gmail.com> wrote in message
·····························@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>I am new to Lisp and looking for a modern graphical IDE for Windows. I
> tried Lisp in a Box with Emacs... I'm sure for people experienced in
> emacs it is very powerful, but I'm looking for a more modern IDE than
> that. I'd prefer a free one, but if I have to, I don't mind paying for
> one.
>
>>>>> "EH" == Ethan Herdrick <············@yahoo.com> writes:
[...]
[on emacs]
EH> It is *powerful* in a very limited sense of the word, sort of
EH> like driving a car by separately steering each wheel. With a
EH> car like that you could park in places no one else could -
EH> after you became skillful. In the meantime, you're a
EH> disaster. [...]
This is probably the best description of discomfort from a new emacs
user that I have read in this newsgroup. Folks trying to switch from
whatever it is they use on windows usually skip the "*powerful*" bit
and outright claim emacs is/must be broken. You can imagine how
effective that approach is for getting help from people who've been
using emacsy editors for a decade or two. I understand the CUA mode
you mention alleviates some of the problems for you, but perhaps you
could tell us what else might help?
cheers,
BM
Bulent Murtezaoglu <··@acm.org> wrote in
···················@p4.internal:
>>>>>> "EH" == Ethan Herdrick <············@yahoo.com> writes:
> [...]
> [on emacs]
> EH> It is *powerful* in a very limited sense of the word, sort of
> EH> like driving a car by separately steering each wheel. With a
> EH> car like that you could park in places no one else could -
> EH> after you became skillful. In the meantime, you're a
> EH> disaster. [...]
>
> This is probably the best description of discomfort from a new emacs
> user that I have read in this newsgroup. Folks trying to switch from
> whatever it is they use on windows usually skip the "*powerful*" bit
> and outright claim emacs is/must be broken. You can imagine how
> effective that approach is for getting help from people who've been
> using emacsy editors for a decade or two. I understand the CUA mode
> you mention alleviates some of the problems for you, but perhaps you
> could tell us what else might help?
Proper menus. Emacs has this whole "memorized keystrokes are wonderful"
philosophy. So what a Windows newbie ends up doing is RTFM a ton, until
they realize the learning curve is too long to be of value. Then they
give up. Culturally, I don't believe the Emacs universe will ever
address these issues. Emacs is filled with Unixen who think that having
everything broken is fun, and that everyone loves RTFM.
Eclipse, in contrast, has rather advanced tutorial functionality from
the get-go. You start up Eclipse, the 1st thing it's trying to do is
tell you how to use the thing. Now, not every Eclipse plug-in avails
itself of such tutorial functionality, particularly open source tools
for the more obscure languages. But the mechanism is there for creating
such tutorials, and more importantly, the culture.
Moving Visual Studio programmers to Emacs mostly ain't gonna happen.
Moving them to Eclipse http://www.eclipse.org is possible, although I
haven't explored all dimensions of the problem yet. Indeed, I really
haven't swallowed Eclipse. It's not like I wanted to code something in
Java, and everything's just ready to go. Rather, I need to construct a
Bigloo Scheme environment from pieces and parts. I have to actually
understand all this open source plugin architecture stuff, rather than
just getting going and using it. Anyways, it's next on my list of
things TODO, so soon I'll see if it flies.
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed McKenzie
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> writes:
> Proper menus. Emacs has this whole "memorized keystrokes are wonderful"
> philosophy.
Memorizing the keystrokes does save a lot of time. But feel free to
use the menus and commands in the meantime.
> Eclipse, in contrast, has rather advanced tutorial functionality from
> the get-go. You start up Eclipse, the 1st thing it's trying to do is
> tell you how to use the thing.
In contrast? When you start up Emacs, the splash screen tells you
that you can learn Emacs by using `C-h t' to start the tutorial. I
believe it is also under the help menu. You have to put a spell in
your .emacs to turn off the splash screen.
> Moving Visual Studio programmers to Emacs mostly ain't gonna happen.
Ok, you said mostly. As a data point, I used MSVC++ 5.0 before I met
Emacs.
If you want to program in Lisp, Emacs is probably the best editor
available. It is Lisp aware which is not optional. It is also
consistent across platforms so you don't have to learn new key
bindings each time you switch to another OS. I've used about a half
dozen different OSs in my lifetime. None of them have agreed on key
bindings.
> Moving them to Eclipse http://www.eclipse.org is possible, although I
> haven't explored all dimensions of the problem yet. Indeed, I really
> haven't swallowed Eclipse.
You haven't learned Eclipse but you want to move Visual Studio users
over? Why?
> It's not like I wanted to code something in Java, and everything's
> just ready to go.
Really? What's been missing? Sun's JDK worked out of the box when I
used it.
> Rather, I need to construct a Bigloo Scheme environment from pieces
> and parts.
That's something you should probably take up with the c.l.s ng. In
the meantime, it looks like there is Bee:
http://www-sop.inria.fr/mimosa/fp/Bigloo/bigloo-6.html
> I have to actually understand all this open source plugin
> architecture stuff, rather than just getting going and using it.
Perhaps if you get going and use it, you will come to understand it.
> Anyways, it's next on my list of things TODO, so soon I'll see if it
> flies.
Just do it.
--
An ideal world is left as an excercise to the reader.
--- Paul Graham, On Lisp 8.1
No excuses. No apologies. Just do it.
--- Erik Naggum
David Steuber <·····@david-steuber.com> wrote in
···················@david-steuber.com:
> "Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com>
> writes:
>
>> Proper menus. Emacs has this whole "memorized keystrokes are
>> wonderful" philosophy.
>
> Memorizing the keystrokes does save a lot of time. But feel free to
> use the menus and commands in the meantime.
They aren't complete. I know this for fact. I use GNU Emacs as a sort
of "more advanced Notepad." 8 months of such use hasn't taught me shit.
The only reason I can use GNU Emacs at all, is once upon a time way
back in the stone ages, I used it a lot on Linux. I had muscle memory
for things like C-x 1. I had an ancient pain investment that still had
some validity. I never saw the greatness of it back then either,
honestly.
>> Eclipse, in contrast, has rather advanced tutorial functionality from
>> the get-go. You start up Eclipse, the 1st thing it's trying to do is
>> tell you how to use the thing.
>
> In contrast? When you start up Emacs, the splash screen tells you
> that you can learn Emacs by using `C-h t' to start the tutorial. I
> believe it is also under the help menu. You have to put a spell in
> your .emacs to turn off the splash screen.
I leave the tackiness of learning anything in Emacs as an exercise to
the reader. Try balloon help for starters, the norm in more
GUI-oriented stuff.
> You haven't learned Eclipse but you want to move Visual Studio users
> over? Why?
Because it's quite obviously coming from the same development culture as
the Visual Studio users.
>> Rather, I need to construct a Bigloo Scheme environment from pieces
>> and parts.
>
> That's something you should probably take up with the c.l.s ng. In
> the meantime, it looks like there is Bee:
>
> http://www-sop.inria.fr/mimosa/fp/Bigloo/bigloo-6.html
I assure you it doesn't work on Windows. Yannis Bres may yet make it
work in the next release however.
> Just do it.
I've "just done it" with an awful lot of tools and technologies now.
The things coming out of the Unix universe that get ported to Windows
mostly work like shit. Unix is a culture, one that most Windows
developers do not like.
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed McKenzie
>>>>> "BJVE" == Brandon J Van Every <·····················@mycompanyname.com> writes: [...]
BJVE> Proper menus.
What are proper menus? I admit I run emacs with menus turned off, but
things seem to be there in the menus. Slime has about 50 commands
bound to keys. Some, if not most of those do appear in menus. What is
it that is improper about those menus?
BJVE> Emacs has this whole "memorized keystrokes
BJVE> are wonderful" philosophy.
Emacs _users_ have this "I will use this tool tomorrow and the day
after tomorrow and the decade after this" attitude so they don't resist
learning what keys to hit.
BJVE> So what a Windows newbie ends up
BJVE> doing is RTFM a ton, until they realize the learning curve
BJVE> is too long to be of value. Then they give up.
I switched to emacs from Borland environments on CP/M, and I did not
find the curve to be that long to reach the functionality of what I
was used to. The rest of the curve was/is gravy. Perhaps
visual-mumble environments do amazing things now, but I don't know
what those amazing things are (I certainly didn't see any huge power
in VC 6.0). What is it exactly that you can do in those windows
environments that requires you to climb a curve in emacs? I do
understand there's some discomfort, I don't understand the specifics.
BJVE> Culturally,
BJVE> I don't believe the Emacs universe will ever address these
BJVE> issues. Emacs is filled with Unixen who think that having
BJVE> everything broken is fun, and that everyone loves RTFM.
Perhaps we don't notice what is broken or perhaps those things are not
broken at all. You seem to confuse literacy with being a unix user.
It isn't. I am not trying to pick a fight here, but making it easy
for grandma to use a computer (so she'll buy one) is in a different
problem space than making it convenient for a programmer to communicate
what he wants to the machine or, more importantly, for him to find out
what a program is capable of. It is not unreasonable to expect the
programmer to read some documentation. That said, emacs _is_ self
documenting. Hit C-h b and see what key is bound to what for example (I
don't know what the visual-mumble equivalent is, pull down all the menus
and stare? Something else?)
[...]
BJVE> Eclipse, in contrast, has rather advanced tutorial
BJVE> functionality from the get-go. You start up Eclipse, the
BJVE> 1st thing it's trying to do is tell you how to use the
BJVE> thing. Now, not every Eclipse plug-in avails itself of such
BJVE> tutorial functionality, particularly open source tools for
BJVE> the more obscure languages. But the mechanism is there for
BJVE> creating such tutorials, and more importantly, the culture. [...]
This makes sense. Eclipse needs to get users. Emacs is primarily for
its existing users. Emacs on windows is mostly for regular emacs
users who are stuck with windows. That's one reason why the cultures
as percieved by a new user will be different. It is not reasonable,
IMHO, to assume perpetual newbieness on the part of the user though.
After a week's use, don't people get irritated that things they
know what key to hit for are still sitting on a pretty bar of some
sort eating up screen real estate?
cheers,
BM
Bulent Murtezaoglu <··@acm.org> wrote in
···················@p4.internal:
>>>>>> "BJVE" == Brandon J Van Every
>>>>>> <·····················@mycompanyname.com> writes: [...]
>
> BJVE> Proper menus.
>
> What are proper menus? I admit I run emacs with menus turned off, but
> things seem to be there in the menus. Slime has about 50 commands
> bound to keys. Some, if not most of those do appear in menus. What
> is it that is improper about those menus?
Proper menus are ones that (1) cover all typical program functionality,
(2) always have the name of the keystroke binding on the menu entry, so
that you can eventually learn the keystroke binding if you use the
function frequently enough, without having to go read the manual. The
GNU Emacs menu bindings are most improper. For instance, there's a menu
entry for "Close (current buffer)" but no keybinding given.
> BJVE> Emacs has this whole "memorized keystrokes
> BJVE> are wonderful" philosophy.
>
> Emacs _users_ have this "I will use this tool tomorrow and the day
> after tomorrow and the decade after this" attitude so they don't
> resist learning what keys to hit.
That's a tautology / breeding ground. It says that anyone who puts up
with Emacs has decided it's worth putting up with.
> BJVE> Eclipse, in contrast, has rather advanced tutorial
> BJVE> functionality from the get-go. You start up Eclipse, the
> BJVE> 1st thing it's trying to do is tell you how to use the
> BJVE> thing. Now, not every Eclipse plug-in avails itself of such
> BJVE> tutorial functionality, particularly open source tools for
> BJVE> the more obscure languages. But the mechanism is there for
> BJVE> creating such tutorials, and more importantly, the culture.
> [...]
>
> This makes sense. Eclipse needs to get users. Emacs is primarily for
> its existing users.
Right, Emacs does nothing for new people.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"The pioneer is the one with the arrows in his back."
- anonymous entrepreneur
From: =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Andr=E9_Thieme?=
Subject: Re: IDE for Windows
Date:
Message-ID: <d44cm3$l0k$1@ulric.tng.de>
Brandon J. Van Every schrieb:
> Proper menus are ones that (1) cover all typical program functionality,
> (2) always have the name of the keystroke binding on the menu entry, so
> that you can eventually learn the keystroke binding if you use the
> function frequently enough, without having to go read the manual. The
> GNU Emacs menu bindings are most improper. For instance, there's a menu
> entry for "Close (current buffer)" but no keybinding given.
I am not an emacs expert, but I found out that in my version of emacs I
can use C-x k for closing the current buffer.
>>This makes sense. Eclipse needs to get users. Emacs is primarily for
>>its existing users.
>
> Right, Emacs does nothing for new people.
I agree. New people, babies, won't be interested very much in emacs. I
think their primary goal is to survive.
Andr�
--
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> writes:
> Proper menus are ones that (1) cover all typical program
> functionality,
Must be a rather featureless editor that allows all of its
functionality to be covered by menus.
Jacek Generowicz wrote:
>"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> writes:
>
>
>
>>Proper menus are ones that (1) cover all typical program
>>functionality,
>>
>>
>
>Must be a rather featureless editor that allows all of its
>functionality to be covered by menus.
>
>
Nevertheless, all main functionality can / is covered by menus, even in
Emacs. And, Emacs does not bother to provide the keybindings on the
menus for all this main functionality. From a user training standpoint,
that's completely lame.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed McKenzie
On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 17:46:02 GMT, "Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> wrote:
> Nevertheless, all main functionality can / is covered by menus, even
> in Emacs. And, Emacs does not bother to provide the keybindings on
> the menus for all this main functionality.
That's simply not true. If a function available via the menus has a
keybinding it is shown there. If you customize the keybindings Emacs
will of course show the customized keybindings in the menu. Stop
spreading disinformation.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi Weitz wrote:
>On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 17:46:02 GMT, "Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Nevertheless, all main functionality can / is covered by menus, even
>>in Emacs. And, Emacs does not bother to provide the keybindings on
>>the menus for all this main functionality.
>>
>>
>
>That's simply not true. If a function available via the menus has a
>keybinding it is shown there. If you customize the keybindings Emacs
>will of course show the customized keybindings in the menu. Stop
>spreading disinformation.
>
>
>
Look, it doesn't. I'm on Windows 2000 and I have GNU Emacs 21.3 sitting
right in front of me. As I said before, even the keystroke for
something as basic as "Close (current buffer)" is not stated. Whether
or not a keystroke is stated is totally arbitrary. Some are, some aren't.
Now, maybe it's supposed to have 'em. Maybe the Windows binary I got is
configured incorrectly. But it is what it is, and it sucks. Don't tell
me I'm supposed to have configured it correctly, or found the bug, or
whatever. This stuff should be correct out of the box, and it isn't.
If you don't believe me, then we will have to compare screenshots. But
I am not spreading disinformation. I find it is very fashionable here
for people to say "You're spreading disinformation!" when the truth is,
the other person hasn't incorporated the alternate possibilities.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed McKenzie
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Edi Weitz wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 17:46:02 GMT, "Brandon J. Van Every"
>> <·····················@mycompanyname.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Nevertheless, all main functionality can / is covered by menus, even
>>> in Emacs. And, Emacs does not bother to provide the keybindings on
>>> the menus for all this main functionality.
>>
>> That's simply not true. If a function available via the menus has a
>> keybinding it is shown there. If you customize the keybindings Emacs
>> will of course show the customized keybindings in the menu. Stop
>> spreading disinformation.
>
> Look, it doesn't. I'm on Windows 2000 and I have GNU Emacs 21.3 sitting
> right in front of me. As I said before, even the keystroke for
> something as basic as "Close (current buffer)" is not stated. Whether
> or not a keystroke is stated is totally arbitrary. Some are, some aren't.
No keystroke is listed for "Close current buffer" because there is none
to list. Perhaps you're thinking of C-x k, but that interactively asks
you what buffer you want to delete. There's no key sequence bound to
the action that closes the current buffer without prompting.
On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 19:14:05 GMT, "Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> wrote:
> Edi Weitz wrote:
>
>>That's simply not true. If a function available via the menus has a
>>keybinding it is shown there. If you customize the keybindings
>>Emacs will of course show the customized keybindings in the menu.
>>Stop spreading disinformation.
>
> Look, it doesn't. I'm on Windows 2000 and I have GNU Emacs 21.3
> sitting right in front of me. As I said before, even the keystroke
> for something as basic as "Close (current buffer)" is not stated.
This menu entry is bound to the function `kill-this-buffer' which
solely exists for this menu entry. By default it has no key binding,
so no key binding can be shown.[1] I repeat (and please read slowly
this time): "If a function available via the menus has a keybinding it
is shown there." Add a key binding for `kill-this-buffer' to your
~/.emacs file and you'll see that it's shown in the menu.
> Whether or not a keystroke is stated is totally arbitrary.
No. It's just that you don't get it.
> But I am not spreading disinformation.
Well, then invent another name for it. You're the marketing guy.
Edi.
[1] And before you are telling me that this function is so fundamental
that it should have a key binding: The fundamental function is
`kill-buffer' which by default has a key binding.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de> schrieb:
> This menu entry is bound to the function `kill-this-buffer' which
> solely exists for this menu entry.
I'm with Brandon on this one. This is totally wacky, and it's ridiculous
that people waste more time trying to defend this stuff than it would
take to just fix it.
Adrian Kubala <···········@sixfingeredman.net> writes:
> Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de> schrieb:
> > This menu entry is bound to the function `kill-this-buffer' which
> > solely exists for this menu entry.
>
> I'm with Brandon on this one.
Well, if we're playing along at home and keeping score,
I'm with Edi on this detail. (My larger point notwithstanding.)
On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 16:45:03 -0500, Adrian Kubala <···········@sixfingeredman.net> wrote:
> This is totally wacky, and it's ridiculous that people waste more
> time trying to defend this stuff than it would take to just fix it.
Would you care to explain what's so "totally wacky" about this and how
you would "fix" it? I just checked, to name just a few, Firefox,
iTunes, and Word on my machine and - surprise! - they also have some
menu entries with key bindings and some without.[1] Do I assume
correctly that these are also "totally wacky" and should be "fixed?"
Edi.
[1] Of course, in Emacs you can change this while in most other apps
you probably can't.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 16:45:03 -0500, Adrian Kubala
<···········@sixfingeredman.net> wrote:
>Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de> schrieb:
>> This menu entry is bound to the function `kill-this-buffer' which
>> solely exists for this menu entry.
>
>I'm with Brandon on this one. This is totally wacky, and it's ridiculous
>that people waste more time trying to defend this stuff than it would
>take to just fix it.
Given that emacs dynamically binds keys, there is only one way to
insert a string describing the keys associated with a function into a
menu. That is given a function ( or the symbol of the function ) to
ask the program what it's associated key is. This would be by
calling some function "get-associated-key" or looking up the key in
some table mapping keys to functions. Looking around a little
I discover that emacs uses the second method and calls the table
a keymap.
Wow this like some *supercomplicated* emacs stuff, except for two
things.
1) You need to know this if you implement the menu code. You
don't need to know this if you are implementing some sort of
menu's for for example a program mode, but it helps.
As a user you don't need to understand any of this. Of course it
doesn't speak much of you if you don't since you are presumable a
programmer and there is nothing here that is not fairly obvious.
2) This is all kind of manadatory for any program that has dynamic ie
customisable keyboard shortcuts. Like for example, any Office
application. And if you look closely, you will discover that each
Office application suffers from the same complaint. Not only that
but the Borland and Windows developer environments suffer from
the same problem ie the debugger break command has no shortcut.
The funny thing is that many emacs users use an ascii interface and do
ascii programming, so you would expect that they might have trouble
understanding this. Instead it is the *supposed* Windows programmer
( where this kind of thing is commonplace ) that is having trouble
understanding this.
The reply-to email address is ··········@yahoo.com.
This is an address I ignore.
To reply via email, remove 2002 and change yahoo to
interaccess,
**
Thaddeus L. Olczyk, PhD
There is a difference between
*thinking* you know something,
and *knowing* you know something.
Edi Weitz wrote:
>No. It's just that you don't get it.
>
>
>
The fine-grained semantics you're arguing are ridiculous. The bottom
line is, the software as shipped does not display lotsa keybindings to
the hapless user. And Emacs afficionados wonder why other people think
their uber-editor is crud.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed McKenzie
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> writes:
> The fine-grained semantics you're arguing are ridiculous. The bottom
> line is, the software as shipped does not display lotsa keybindings to
> the hapless user. And Emacs afficionados wonder why other people
> think their uber-editor is crud.
Feel free to use a different editor. No one here is forcing you to
use Emacs or any other Lisp aware editor. There is really no point in
complaining about Emacs here or anywhere else.
--
An ideal world is left as an excercise to the reader.
--- Paul Graham, On Lisp 8.1
No excuses. No apologies. Just do it.
--- Erik Naggum
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> wrote in
message ·························@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> Edi Weitz wrote:
>
>>No. It's just that you don't get it.
>>
>>
> The fine-grained semantics you're arguing are ridiculous. The bottom line
> is, the software as shipped does not display lotsa keybindings to the
> hapless user. And Emacs afficionados wonder why other people think their
> uber-editor is crud.
I've been using the Lispworks editor for about 4 evenings, now. Though it
is not marketed as 'Emacs', it is built on Emacs. Most of what I've seen
for basics in Emacs is in it chord for chord. Truly, it is feeling
comfortable and easier to use than, say, Word. It is difficult to
understand what a nuisance the 'clickiness' is until you have been able to
work without it.
You can be. Start as small as you must to make something work. Work hard
to build on it.
> "We live in a world of very bright people building
> crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
> - Ed McKenzie
"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and
let us have done with you. In the name of God, go! "
-Oliver Cromwell
Joe Manby wrote:
> I've been using the Lispworks editor for about 4 evenings, now.
Though it
> is not marketed as 'Emacs', it is built on Emacs. Most of what I've
seen
I started out with Vim on Windows (we use Windows at work), but I've
been using Xemacs for a couple of years now. Recently, I switched back
to Vim. Why?
First, I was getting wrist/hand pain, even though I had sticky keys on.
Second, even though I prefered Xemacs for any large-scale editing, Vim
couldn't be beat for quick work on a C file, or a BSD (my preferred OS)
config file. And it was so much faster.
I went back to Vim, this time getting the docs and reading them. As
much as I loved Xemacs, I don't think I'll go back anytime soon. Vim
is just too cool. It's not a news reader, an email program, or a
psychologist, but what it does, it does very well and very powerfully.
It does every vital function I need from an editor, and many of those
done by Xemacs.
I wish it worked better with Lisp. But for the time being, it forces
me to learn function/macro names.
jonathon
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> writes:
> >That's simply not true. If a function available via the menus has a
> >keybinding it is shown there. If you customize the keybindings Emacs
> >will of course show the customized keybindings in the menu. Stop
> >spreading disinformation.
>
> [...] As I said before, even the keystroke for something as basic as
> "Close (current buffer)" is not stated.
Because there is none! (Now, of course, may follow the question why
there isn't such a keybinding, but be aware that this would be a
/different/ question than the one at stake.)
> Whether or not a keystroke is stated is totally arbitrary. Some are,
> some aren't.
If a keybinding exists for the same underlaying function as of a menu
entry, then it's shown.
--tcr.
Bulent Murtezaoglu <··@acm.org> writes:
> Emacs is primarily for its existing users. Emacs on windows is
> mostly for regular emacs users who are stuck with windows.
> That's one reason why the cultures as percieved by a new user
> will be different.
Emacs has a certain way of doing things which is not the familiar
way that one does things on Windows. Emacs users (and developers)
like the way that it works, and are not liable to really get into
another way of doing things, much less re-tool Emacs to be as highly
compatible with the Windows (or Mac) as some people would prefer.
But it's worth remembering that Emacs is not a Unix program,
and does not do things the Unix way, either. Emacs originated
on systems that did not have any GUI whatsoever. It's keyboard
interface is not even fully compatible with any of the keyboards
used on computers today. Emacs is as about as incompatible with
Unix as it is with Windows or MacOS. It just gets away with it
on Unix more easily, because Unix doesn't have such a standard GUI
with attendant expectations. (And many Unix users do not like
or accept Emacs, either!)
Emacs is for people who like Emacs (as opposed to people who
like some other particular user interface culture or standard).
It has some compatability features and concessions to the
platforms that it runs on these days. The perception of
the quality of those features depends on where the user is
coming from. Users who are accustomed to certain standard
interface guidelines tend to find Emacs bewilderingly
difficult to use. Emacs users just sneer at them and say,
"Can't you read? Why can you not deal with typing c-H T ?"
I'm a dyed in he wool Emacs user for over a quarter of a century,
and have used many different versions of Emacs on a quite a few
different operating systems and environments, going back to the
original one written in TECO. My favorite version was Zmacs on
the Lisp Machine (more powerful and more flexible, although it
used a linked lines model rather than a looking-at-cursor model,
which I didn't like.) I wouldn't trade Emacs for anything,
but the degree to which it is "foreign" and difficult for new users
cannot be understimated. I don't consider Emacs's GUI features to
be great, either in terms of functionality or in terms of usability
(never mind look-and-feel compatability) compared to what's available
on "modern" programmer's editors.
Some people have asked, "What's wrong with it, specifically?"
This just goes to show how unfamiliar they are with the expectations
that some of us are talking about. Emacs seems so overwhelmingly different,
and it even _appears_ to have such functional defficiencies, that these
conversations are hard to get started. We can all come up with a
laundry list, but it needs more work than that. And the response
always sounds like, "What's wrong with just doing it be XYZ?
How could you not have located that command?" It's very frustrating
and demoralizing. I'm guilty of being on that responding end of that,
although I occasionally play the proxy plaintiff here (especiallg if
I've recently been teaching someone to use Emacs recently).
The degree to which Emacs advocates fail to appreciate this
just goes to show how entrenched in our own cultures we all are.
The Emacs culture tends to include an aggressive exploratory style
that is not oriented around GUIs. It's more natural to people coming
from Unix, who are used to a command-line based environment that has
a lot of nooks and crannys that need exploring. The Emacs culture is
also very pragmatic, willing to go quite far in accepting some superficial
warts in trade for what they see as access to underlying power.
That's a value is also shared by the Lisp community, by no small coincidence.
Finally, there are differing aesthetics: lots of us Emacs users consider
the normal GUI-oriented way of doing things on these platforms to be abysmal.
I have thought about Emacs in some detail over many years,
but I don't see much payoff for anyone in my going into it in detail
in this forum. So I won't usually talk here about specific design issues.
I'll just try to garner some sympathy for the "newbies" here by pointing
out that while there's no more experienced Emacs user than myself,
I often sympathize with them. If Emacs weren't such a wonderfully
productive environment, I'd be embarrassed for it,
rather than promoting it as I do.
So I guess this post is about all the Emacs flaming I'm going to do.
My advice for people responding to Emacs complains would be to not
bother trying to defend Emacs or explain its culture. Just give as
straightforward technical "how-to" answer for specific questions.
Let the newbie just collect and process the help -- if they're too
recalcitrant to deal with that, there's no hope for them anyway.
Also point out that Emacs is certainly not necessary for programming
in Lisp. Try to avoid comparing Emacs to a GUI-based IDE, but tell
them about the specific Lisp integration commands that may not be
available in their favorite editor. Try not to hitch Common Lisp
to Emacs; that's a lot to swallow for someone brand new.
Point newbies coming from IDE backgrounds to the trial versions
of the commercial Lisp environments if you want to give the most
polished first impression. Save SLIME for the hardcore folks,
at least for the time being.
P.S.
If anyone ever wants to fund some work on the development of a new
version of Emacs that addresses concerns not just in user interface,
but also in portability and integration, please let me know.
I've got years of pent-up ideas and notes about it.
P.P.S.
If someone seems to be trolling and endlessly explaining
why something (Lisp, Emacs, etc.) is no good for them,
they're probably just totally wasting you're time.
That's Usenet for you!
······@news.dtpq.com (Christopher C. Stacy) wrote in
>
> Some people have asked, "What's wrong with it, specifically?"
> This just goes to show how unfamiliar they are with the expectations
> that some of us are talking about. Emacs seems so overwhelmingly
> different, and it even _appears_ to have such functional
> defficiencies, that these conversations are hard to get started. We
> can all come up with a laundry list, but it needs more work than that.
> And the response always sounds like, "What's wrong with just doing it
> be XYZ? How could you not have located that command?" It's very
> frustrating and demoralizing. I'm guilty of being on that responding
> end of that, although I occasionally play the proxy plaintiff here
> (especiallg if I've recently been teaching someone to use Emacs
> recently). The degree to which Emacs advocates fail to appreciate this
> just goes to show how entrenched in our own cultures we all are.
Right. Which is why, to the degree I care about getting other Windows
game developers to adopt the open source technologies I'm experimenting
with, Emacs is a no-sell. It is way, way more rational for me to
swallow Eclipse and pitch the Eclipse learning curve, because it is
coming from the same Windows / Mac GUI development culture that the
Visual Studio users are used to.
> So I guess this post is about all the Emacs flaming I'm going to do.
>
> My advice for people responding to Emacs complains would be to not
> bother trying to defend Emacs or explain its culture. Just give as
> straightforward technical "how-to" answer for specific questions.
> Let the newbie just collect and process the help -- if they're too
> recalcitrant to deal with that, there's no hope for them anyway.
Sure there is. They can go to Eclipse. I think it's inevitable that
Emacs will always have its adherants, but will never dominate in terms
of market share. You're only going to convert "those special people" to
your cause.
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed McKenzie
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> writes:
> I think it's inevitable that Emacs will always have its adherants,
> but will never dominate in terms of market share. You're only going
> to convert "those special people" to your cause.
Not only do most who reject Emacs not know what they're missing, many
of them wouldn't even understand what they're missing. They don't miss
what they can't imagine.
I don't sing its praises just because I have a learning investment in
it. Rather, I've never seen another "editor", let alone an application
or -- struggling for words -- environment that even strives for the
same goals. Thinking of Emacs as "just an editor", comparing it to
other editors or IDEs, misses the characteristics that make it so
amazing.
--
Steven E. Harris
"Steven E. Harris" <···@panix.com> wrote in
····················@W003275.na.alarismed.com:
> "Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com>
> writes:
>
>> I think it's inevitable that Emacs will always have its adherants,
>> but will never dominate in terms of market share. You're only going
>> to convert "those special people" to your cause.
>
> Not only do most who reject Emacs not know what they're missing, many
> of them wouldn't even understand what they're missing. They don't miss
> what they can't imagine.
Well, in my case, I do know what I'm missing. I did Emacs for about 3
years on Linux. At the time I never got into the whole "look what you
can do with Lisp and macros!" thing. All that was to me, was another
way to futz with configuration files. My memory is that I put a lot of
hard work into learning a sufficient set of key bindings to get most of
my jobs done. Reading Emacs documentation, even if it is not as bad as
Microsoft documentation, is painful and time consuming, Emacs is
fundamentally oriented to people who expect everyone to RTFM as a matter
of course, or even desire.
Most of my coding brilliance, what little of it exists, I would prefer
to save for my actual projects. So if I ever do clever things with
Scheme or Lisp, I will do them there, and not in some editor. There's a
class of people out there who "love to script everything." That would
not be me. Perhaps the reason Windows doesn't have any kind of properly
scriptable shell, is that the sensibility of wanting to script
everything is rather alien to a WYSIWYG GUI mindset.
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed McKenzie
"Brandon J. Van Every" wrote :
> Most of my coding brilliance... I would prefer
> to save for my actual projects.
Bingo.
So you use Eclipse? Does it do Lisp indentation?
"Ethan Herdrick" <············@yahoo.com> writes:
> So you use Eclipse? Does it do Lisp indentation?
I use Eclipse for my Scheme programming (about 90% of my time). I had
to develop my own plugin, though. It's called SchemeScript. Some
people use it for CommonLisp programming, too. It is highly
configurable and you can control the way indentation works.
http://schemeway.sourceforge.net
Cheers,
Dominique Boucher
Ethan Herdrick wrote:
>"Brandon J. Van Every" wrote :
>
>
>
>>Most of my coding brilliance... I would prefer
>>to save for my actual projects.
>>
>>
>
>Bingo.
>
>So you use Eclipse? Does it do Lisp indentation?
>
>
>
>
I am still going up the Eclipse learning curve. I will be using the
SchemeWay plugin. I seriously doubt that editing is the problem. The
main issue I'm worried about right now is build procedures. I need to
settle on something that's palatable to Windows developers. It is
possible that some of my work will become open source, and in that
event, I want Windows game developers to be persuaded to use it.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed McKenzie
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> writes:
> I am still going up the Eclipse learning curve. I will be using the
> SchemeWay plugin. I seriously doubt that editing is the problem. The
> main issue I'm worried about right now is build procedures. I need to
> settle on something that's palatable to Windows developers.
The XML project files in newer releases of Visual Studio is pretty
easy to work with. I haven't been able to find an all-encompassing
reference, but its not hard to figure out whats going on by looking at
the output of msdev and asking google about xml project files in the
microsoft.com domain. There is a command line tool, vcbuild, which
you can use to launch builds from the command line.
······@news.dtpq.com (Christopher C. Stacy) writes:
> The degree to which Emacs advocates fail to appreciate this
> just goes to show how entrenched in our own cultures we all are.
I agree with all you said but I would like to make a passing comment
on this point. Lately I've been thinking about how a Lisp editor
could be written to fully conform to the Aqua HIG on OS X. I think it
would be an interesting, although non-trivial, exercise.
Editors are there own little world, so it's hardly a surprise that
they have their own religious zealots just as operating systems do.
--
An ideal world is left as an excercise to the reader.
--- Paul Graham, On Lisp 8.1
No excuses. No apologies. Just do it.
--- Erik Naggum
Oh my, yet another editor discussion ...
On 4247 September 1993, Christopher C. Stacy wrote:
> But it's worth remembering that Emacs is not a Unix program,
> and does not do things the Unix way, either.
I agree, as I do with most of your remarks.
> Emacs seems so overwhelmingly different, and it even _appears_ to
> have such functional defficiencies, that these conversations are
> hard to get started. [...] The degree to which Emacs advocates
> fail to appreciate this just goes to show how entrenched in our own
> cultures we all are.
Just for the record (and I'll promise I'll shut up about editors for
the time being) most Emacs users I know are pretty much aware of the
problems Emacs has, and especially wrt. the newbies. Most of them try
to be helpful and provide pointers where more information can be
found. Sometimes, the way this "help" is provided results in being
disregarded as not helpful at all, and sometimes it truly isn't (e.g.,
there's an awful lot of really difficult documentation and even with
documentation there are a lot of dark corners in Emacs). But more
often than not experienced Emacs users try to provide help exactly
because they understand the learning curve involved by their own
experience.
Holger
--
--- http://www.coling.uni-freiburg.de/~schauer/ ---
"I'm living in a land where Sex and Horror are the New Gods."
-- Frankie Goes To Hollywood, "Two tribes"
"Ethan Herdrick" <············@yahoo.com> writes:
> I've started using Emacs (by installing Lisp in a Box), though I'm
> not happy about it. It is *powerful* in a very limited sense of the
> word, sort of like driving a car by separately steering each wheel.
> With a car like that you could park in places no one else could -
> after you became skillful. In the meantime, you're a disaster.
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?IfYourCarWereEmacs
--
Johan Bockg�rd
HOn Sun, 17 Apr 2005 01:27:16 -0700, "Ethan Herdrick"
<············@yahoo.com> wrote:
>onlyafly:
>
>I hear you. I'm very new to Lisp too, and while I don't have any really
>satisfactory solutions, I'll pass on my experience to you.
>
>You really need to have something that :
>
>1) indents Lisp correctly
>
>2) does basic things in a way already familiar to you, so you can focus on
>learning Lisp.
>
>Unfortunately, no free editor I found so far passes both tests. Emacs (with
>SLIME) indents Lisp like a champ, but is completely alien, as you saw.
Hmm. If all you think is good about Emacs is that it "indents Lisp
correctly", then you have a lot to learn. The fact that it has an auto
indent mode has saved me many hours of working in C,C++, Java ( to
name a few ) where I misstype a ( for a {, or a : for a ; or a ' for a
". The fact that it automqatically indents the code ina way that feels
unatural causes me to look before things get to messy and I have to
search a lot of code for a typo.
But that's besides the point.
Emacs is "completely alien" hmm.
Let see. To move around the text you use the cursor keys to move
one space in the appropriate direction. To move to the end of a line
press "End" to the begining "Home". To the end of a buffer, Cntl-End
to the begining of a buffer Cntl-Home. To go up a page press "page up"
to go down a page "page down". To toggle insert and overwrite modes
press insert. To delete a character press backspace.
Yep very alien to most Windows editors.
And if you want to just use the mouse to move the cursor you can even
do that. So that still leaves the problem of saving, reading writing,
exiting. Hmm. Cntl-x s, Cntl-x r, Cntl-x-w and Cntl-x c.
So to do about what most programmers are able to do takes about 5
minutes of reading ( Oh yeah, and you could simpley print the
reference card that comes with emacs ),
Spend another half hour to learn how to setup a .emacs and load
ilisp or slime then learn a couple more code sequences for the mode.
( I actually only remember one C-c C-r
*send-selected-region-to-inferior-process*. )
A little work to customise so that it can find lisp and the mode files
( all included in the half hour).
Enough to get someone started, then spend a hour each week learning
something new:
Week 1) How to use info. How to use the various help functions:
describe-variable, set-variable,describe-function, describe-key etc.
Week 2) various usefull tools, search, search/replace, search regex,
Week 3) What buffers are, how to manipulate them. What windows
are, how to manipulate them.
Week 4) What are frames, how to manipulate them. Which should
be easier than Week 3 since you generally replace C-4 with C-5
to go from a window command to a frqame command.
Week 5) How to customise keys. Adding some usefull customisations,
such as setting undo to C-z.
Week 6) Customising auto-indent.
Week 7) Download special customisations to work well with windows.
Such as using C-tab to toggle buffers.
Week 8) More detail in Slime mode.
Week 9) Compiling from emacs. Intefacing with your SCM.
Week 10) Using emacs to diff most files.
Week 11) Using tags.
Week 12) Using selective display.
So for the investment of half an hour a week for three months one
gets to the point where one is better versed in Emacs than most of
it's user. In that time the person has to learn fewer
keystrokes/commands, and write fewer macros than every Word
power user I know. Shoot a power user isn't even a programmer.
Kind of sad to think that programmer finds memorising fewer keystrokes
than a Word power user "difficult".
And you don't even have to invest that mush to become productive with
emacs. That's to become proficient! To become productive only takes
five minutes.
In fact many Windows programmers put in more time learning editors
like Brief, VisualSlickEdit and MultiEdit. Not to mention different
IDEs.
I myself learned Emacs on an Atari ST. It was the best editor I could
find for it at the time. I used it across several operating systems,
most of them not Unix. I've only known two kinds of programmers
that didn't make efforts to check out editors ( this is *not* a thread
about emacs vs vi vs brief vs whatever editor, this is a thread about
emacs and editors in general over an IDE with an editor that is just
better then Notepad ). Cobol mainframe programmers, who were
convinced that what they did was what programming would be forever
and Win32 ( not Windows programmers, many saw enough change
just in Windows to know that nothing is permanent ) who have the
same poor perspective.
So if you are too lazy, correct that, too stupid to learn an editor,
especially one that takes about five minutes to learn to the point
where you can be productive, then stick to VB.
The reply-to email address is ··········@yahoo.com.
This is an address I ignore.
To reply via email, remove 2002 and change yahoo to
interaccess,
**
Thaddeus L. Olczyk, PhD
There is a difference between
*thinking* you know something,
and *knowing* you know something.
>And if you want to just use the mouse
>to move the cursor you can even do that.
Wonders never cease!
>So if you are too lazy, correct that, too stupid to learn an editor,
Nice.