Re: text editors

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> > > In other words, lisp and prolog (and clojure and guile and scheme) 
> > > give
> > > the "feeling" that "elegant code" can be the best software representation
> > > "in coding". Why? Because "the correctness is almost blatant", as stated. 
> > > In
> > > other words, semantics collapses to syntax. As in mathematics.

I wrote (mainly towards the last sentence about math):
> > The attempt to create a language where semantical correctness results
> > from syntactical correctness was killed by Goedel's incompleteness
> > theorem.

> That is correct in the correct context [...]
> I used the phrase "collapses to". I shunned the word "attains".

So you hope for approximation of programming languages to a situation
where they enforce correct semantics ?
Well, my conclusion from model theory and Goedel was that you can either
have it certain or interesting, not both.

I became the C type of a programmer. Implementing straight ahead. Always
trusting the ability to solve the detail problems. Bad hair days included.
gdb and valgrind are my friends.

I cannot see much clarity of expression in Lisp or C++. Java seemed better
until i got in contact with the spaghetti inheritence of its class libraries.
In general i object the idea of separating model from implementation and
then hiding the latter.


John Hasler wrote:
> I think that you confound soundness and completeness.

The liar paradox is not sound. It demonstrates the fundamental risk
that a fine looking syntactical contraption turns out to be utter nonsense
with undefined consequences. (What Goedel did was to link that kind of
paradox to the properties of natural numbers and to math being performable
by countable many finite sentences composed from a countable alphabet.
So if you want numbers and math books, you also get Epimenides, the most
credible of all cretians.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Re: text editors

[John Hasler]

Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> semantics collapses to syntax. As in mathematics.

Thomas Schmitt writes:
> This view is outdated since nearly 90 years. The attempt to create a
> language where semantical correctness results from syntactical
> correctness was killed by Goedel's incompleteness theorem.

I think that you confound soundness and completeness.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: text editors

[David Wright]

I try to quote the text I am referring to when I post here.
The blob • below is meaningless without the quotation where I placed
it. Here's the quotation (not your post) and what I wrote in reply:



> Don't [•] secretaries, i've seen a lot that would make better programmers
> than whom they work looking at the macros they use.

[I assume that you meant to write some derogatory verb at • or else
it got lost, as did your entire comment in the other two versions
I've received from you.]



On Mon 01 Apr 2019 at 08:10:49 (+), Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
> > "DW" == David Wright  writes:
> 
> 
> DW> I assume that you meant to write some derogatory verb at • or
> DW> else it got lost, as did your entire comment in the other two
> DW> versions I've received from you.
> 
> I think that the original tale referred to their secretaries, and no,
> it was never meant to be derogatory,

The reason I wrote the comment above in square brackets was because it
referred to the [•], also in square brackets, rather than the thread,
and not because of your writing "… even secretaries …" in the anecdote.

> anyone who understand what
> happens around in the workplace KNOWS how fundamental is their
> co-operation.

Sure. But I haven't seen the article in question and what it claims.
Perhaps it indeed shows that they metamorphosed into fully-fledged
programmers without so much as a course or text. If it does, then
it undermines the case of those who write "learning emacs means
learning lisp" as a reason not to learn emacs.

Secretaries do amazing things given the right tools, or after finding
them, or without them. The amazement is of course in the eye of the
beholder, or the writer of articles, or anecdotes. They just *do*
things, like the rest of us.

Cheers,
David.

Re: text editors

[Nicholas Geovanis]

On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 9:22 AM Thomas Schmitt  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> > semantics collapses to syntax. As in mathematics.
>
> This view is outdated since nearly 90 years. The attempt to create a
> language where semantical correctness results from syntactical correctness
> was killed by Goedel's incompleteness theorem.
>

Thomas, Guten Morgen.
That is correct in the correct context/Das ist ja richtig, aber im
richtigen Kontext:
I used the phrase "collapses to". I shunned the word "attains".
Does that make sense? <> statt << Zusammenbruch >>.
In other words, a process not an achievement.

The insight was not new then. Paul the Apostle wrote about Epimenides:
> "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are
>  alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies."
>

Yet at the very least Aristotle began the development of modal and temporal
logics. This is well recognized today. From the beginning of classical
formal logic,
there also began the development of "non-classical" logics :-) The
automation of
logics of belief and contingency is underway for some time.
This is particularly strong in the Chicago area due to Argonne National
Laboratory in the southwestern suburbs, where Robinson worked after his
PhD. Also Overbeek, Wos, Winker (who I knew at uni), usw.


> Have a nice day :)
>

Gruß Gott ;-) Nikko Geovanis/Τζοβανeσ


> Thomas
>
>

Re: text editors

[Curt]

On 2019-04-01, Thomas Schmitt  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
>> semantics collapses to syntax. As in mathematics.
>
> This view is outdated since nearly 90 years. The attempt to create a
> language where semantical correctness results from syntactical correctness
> was killed by Goedel's incompleteness theorem.
>
> The insight was not new then. Paul the Apostle wrote about Epimenides:
> "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are
>  alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies."

The old, recursive, self-referential dragons eating their own tails
(here in the form of oft-told tales), as it were.

> Have a nice day :)
>
> Thomas
>
>


-- 
“Let us again pretend that life is a solid substance, shaped like a globe,
which we turn about in our fingers. Let us pretend that we can make out a plain
and logical story, so that when one matter is despatched--love for instance--
we go on, in an orderly manner, to the next.” - Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Re: text editors

[tomas]

On Mon, Apr 01, 2019 at 04:47:18PM +0200, deloptes wrote:

[...]

> No problem at all [...]

Thanks for not taking it personally.

> Lets hope someone else goes the way to the end ... like Copernicus, Bruno
> and others did over 200years.
> 
> Amen! :D

:-)

Cheers
-- tomás


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> Do your reading before spewing nonsense:
> 
> https://leanpub.com/lisphackers/read
> 
> (and this is /only/ Common Lisp. There's Racket, Guile and the new
> kid on the block, Clojure, each one with its own, quite interesting
> projects -- check out Guix for Guile's current hot-spot).
> 
> Sorry, that sounds harsh, but that's how fake news are born. You've got
> the tendency to state things as if they were true: then you've got the
> damned duty to do some research before.

No problem at all - I have not done research recently - I stopped dealing
with this 12y ago gave up finally 10y ago. What I mean is I have not heard
anything significant, but the reading you point out looks interesting -
will follow up later.

I had a state of the art theoretical model - approved by two universities,
but for lack of funding I gave all this crap up. might someone else dig
further. This is best example how ignorance kills science.
Lets hope someone else goes the way to the end ... like Copernicus, Bruno
and others did over 200years.

Amen! :D

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

Thomas Schmitt wrote:

> This view is outdated since nearly 90 years. The attempt to create a
> language where semantical correctness results from syntactical correctness
> was killed by Goedel's incompleteness theorem.
> 
> The insight was not new then. Paul the Apostle wrote about Epimenides:
> "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are
> alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies."

The true believers speaks.

BTW Thank you all - I feel like I needed a refresh for free.

Re: text editors

[David Wright]

On Mon 01 Apr 2019 at 06:46:09 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Monday 01 April 2019 06:08:17 to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 01, 2019 at 12:03:13PM +0200, deloptes wrote:
> > > Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
> > > > d> I've been listening at this BS at the university as well. Until
> > > > now d> I have not seen any practical or pragmatic use of this. I
> > > > have d> worked with PL and prolog for a while ... unfortunately I
> > > > think in d> coming years or decades it all will be declared dead
> > > > ... when the d> true AI from China will take over :D :D :D
> > > >
> > > > I think that Lisp was used in AI because it was the best language
> > > > you could find to code smart algorithms on... Figure implementing
> > > > mapcar in assembler or FORTRAN :)
> > >
> > > I think also, but no one uses it except for emacs or some niche
> > > programming.
> >
> > Do your reading before spewing nonsense:
> >
> >   https://leanpub.com/lisphackers/read
> >
> This would be a great read, if 90% of the text wasn't 90% white. What the 
> hell is wrong with good old black text?

Yes, to think of all the time wasted by so-called web designers
when all I do with a page like that is press Ctrl-A Ctrl-C and
paste it all into an emacs buffer with Shft-Insert. That way,
I get to read it in *my* choice of font etc.

If the page looks interesting and worth keeping, then I press
Shft-Ctrl-% ! which doubles every Newline, and Escape  Ctrl-Home
which then runs fill-region on every paragraph before saving it.
(These last two are the results of my "programming" ability in this
over-blown editor, ie my ability to cut and paste other people's
scraps. AFAIK no one, least of all User Services, was hurt in the
production of this code.)

Cheers,
David.

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "NG" == Nicholas Geovanis  writes:

NG> In other words, lisp and prolog (and clojure and guile and
NG> scheme) give the "feeling" that "elegant code" can be the best
NG> software representation "in coding". Why? Because "the correctness
NG> is almost blatant", as stated. In other words, semantics collapses
NG> to syntax. As in mathematics.

If you mean that, provided that the semantic of the elements is
univocal -and it is-, a correctly spelt sentence that you read as
"true" is "true", yes.

Or better, an elegant piece of code that you feel is correct when you
create it, very rarely fails, on the other hand code you struggle to
write can be weak.

The problem is that when the language itself is not elegant, it is
difficult to attain such elegance. But elegance is not bound to a
single language, it belongs to languages whose design is sound.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> semantics collapses to syntax. As in mathematics.

This view is outdated since nearly 90 years. The attempt to create a
language where semantical correctness results from syntactical correctness
was killed by Goedel's incompleteness theorem.

The insight was not new then. Paul the Apostle wrote about Epimenides:
"One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are
 alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies."


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Re: text editors

[Nicholas Geovanis]

On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 5:53 AM Gian Uberto Lauri  wrote:

> .Yet Lisp gave me something useful on my work, and that is not
> just being used to functional programming, but also being ready to
> accept that "Ok, guys, here is a place where you have to start
> thinking _very_ differently from where you were used to"; and
> understanding why elegance is so good in coding: a piece of elegant
> code is a piece of code that you actually "feel" is good code, its
> correctness being almos blatant :).
>

In other words, lisp and prolog (and clojure and guile and scheme) give
the "feeling" that "elegant code" can be the best software representation
"in coding". Why? Because "the correctness is almost blatant", as stated.
In other words, semantics collapses to syntax. As in mathematics.

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "DW" == David Wright  writes:


DW> I assume that you meant to write some derogatory verb at • or
DW> else it got lost, as did your entire comment in the other two
DW> versions I've received from you.

I think that the original tale referred to their secretaries, and no,
it was never meant to be derogatory, anyone who understand what
happens around in the workplace KNOWS how fundamental is their
co-operation.

I also think that that was an example of "people who thought it whould
have been impossible for them to write even the easiest program". As
an example, my mother -yes she was a secretary- had her typewriter
replaced by one of those "videotyping" (I am translating the
"videoscrittura" term used then in Italy) in the early nineties. Those
were PCs within a typewriter, I suppose my mom received some sort of
CP/M with a word processor in a rom. It was very like a "tv
typewriter".

O.K., that was a typewriter, a tool she felt confident, so just asked
me a little help. But it had command sequences that were more user
unfriendly than mainframe commands. But, it was a typewriter, she had
no problem to use it.

(later "videoscrittura" machies from Olivetti were indeed DOS-PC in a
typewriter case, I saw people play Arkanoid with them)

Some ten years later, "videoscrittura" sets where completly replaced by
general purpose PCs with [you can guess the software suite].

But those were "computers" not "typewriters", and my mother feared
them, she wrongly feels herself unfit for those machines. I think that
having such persons create some sort of automation whould avoid
"scaring" words, not because "they can't" but because they wrongly
think "they can't".

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

>writes:

>> I think also, but no one uses it except for emacs or some niche
>> programming.

> Do your reading before spewing nonsense:

>   https://leanpub.com/lisphackers/read

> (and this is /only/ Common Lisp. There's Racket, Guile and the new

Wilber likes Guile :) :) :)

> kid on the block, Clojure, each one with its own, quite interesting
> projects -- check out Guix for Guile's current hot-spot).

> Sorry, that sounds harsh, but that's how fake news are born. You've
> got the tendency to state things as if they were true: then you've
> got the damned duty to do some research before.

Let me add 2 cents.

First: http://www.paulgraham.com/lisp.html

Second, for a bit of fun: http://www.paulgraham.com/lisp.html

My personal experience:

Would I like to hang out with lisp hackers? Definitely yes.

Can I? I feat the answer is definitely not. In my company (you can
guess it from the address domain), I know only another guy who knows
Clojure, and he's better than me… But we can't use it on our work.

Java, Java, Java, some SQL, more Java. If you are lucky some Scala.

Lisp is my lifeboat that saves the day and my brain when nice projects
come up like "make GDPR compliant this bunch of legacy applications",
situations where you have potentially tons of stupid, mechanical
editing. Yet Lisp gave me something useful on my work, and that is not
just being used to functional programming, but also being ready to
accept that "Ok, guys, here is a place where you have to start
thinking _very_ differently from where you were used to"; and
understanding why elegance is so good in coding: a piece of elegant
code is a piece of code that you actually "feel" is good code, its
correctness being almos blatant :).

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 01 April 2019 06:08:17 to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 01, 2019 at 12:03:13PM +0200, deloptes wrote:
> > Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
> > > d> I've been listening at this BS at the university as well. Until
> > > now d> I have not seen any practical or pragmatic use of this. I
> > > have d> worked with PL and prolog for a while ... unfortunately I
> > > think in d> coming years or decades it all will be declared dead
> > > ... when the d> true AI from China will take over :D :D :D
> > >
> > > I think that Lisp was used in AI because it was the best language
> > > you could find to code smart algorithms on... Figure implementing
> > > mapcar in assembler or FORTRAN :)
> >
> > I think also, but no one uses it except for emacs or some niche
> > programming.
>
> Do your reading before spewing nonsense:
>
>   https://leanpub.com/lisphackers/read
>
This would be a great read, if 90% of the text wasn't 90% white. What the 
hell is wrong with good old black text?

That said, mention lisp and I think of the Amiga's where the preferred 
scripting language was lisp. And it was fast. But I never got hugely 
productive in it, bash was easier to bang up something quick and dirty 
to get the job done, or better yet, ARexx.  Compiled ARexx was also very 
fast, we wrote WDTV-5's first web page in ARexx, long before php and 
apache were  written to do much of that in a std format on linux. Circa 
1996 IIRC.  ARexx had hooks into every OS call, so unlike REXX or 
Regina, both of which isolated you from the OS, there wasn't anything 
you couldn't do with ARexx. The only REAL cron ever written for the 
Amiga was ezcron, compiled, it ran on about .001% of the CPU. And Jim 
and I wrote it in ARexx.

> (and this is /only/ Common Lisp. There's Racket, Guile and the new
> kid on the block, Clojure, each one with its own, quite interesting
> projects -- check out Guix for Guile's current hot-spot).
>
> Sorry, that sounds harsh, but that's how fake news are born. You've
> got the tendency to state things as if they were true: then you've got
> the damned duty to do some research before.
>
> Furrfu.
>
> Cheers
> -- t


Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: text editors

[tomas]

On Mon, Apr 01, 2019 at 12:03:13PM +0200, deloptes wrote:
> Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
> 
> > d> I've been listening at this BS at the university as well. Until now
> > d> I have not seen any practical or pragmatic use of this. I have
> > d> worked with PL and prolog for a while ... unfortunately I think in
> > d> coming years or decades it all will be declared dead ... when the
> > d> true AI from China will take over :D :D :D
> > 
> > I think that Lisp was used in AI because it was the best language you
> > could find to code smart algorithms on... Figure implementing mapcar
> > in assembler or FORTRAN :)
> 
> I think also, but no one uses it except for emacs or some niche programming.

Do your reading before spewing nonsense:

  https://leanpub.com/lisphackers/read

(and this is /only/ Common Lisp. There's Racket, Guile and the new
kid on the block, Clojure, each one with its own, quite interesting
projects -- check out Guix for Guile's current hot-spot).

Sorry, that sounds harsh, but that's how fake news are born. You've got
the tendency to state things as if they were true: then you've got the
damned duty to do some research before.

Furrfu.

Cheers
-- t


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:

> d> I've been listening at this BS at the university as well. Until now
> d> I have not seen any practical or pragmatic use of this. I have
> d> worked with PL and prolog for a while ... unfortunately I think in
> d> coming years or decades it all will be declared dead ... when the
> d> true AI from China will take over :D :D :D
> 
> I think that Lisp was used in AI because it was the best language you
> could find to code smart algorithms on... Figure implementing mapcar
> in assembler or FORTRAN :)

I think also, but no one uses it except for emacs or some niche programming.
Do not understand me wrong - I think it is a pity that it is not used more
widely, but ... this is also my point. Few years ago I did some research
where Prolog is used ... guess what - very limitted domains. Perhaps you do
a research where lisp is used and share results.

regards

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "d" == deloptes   writes:

d> laughable as well - overblown text editor for what ... to write
d> text files?! Give me a break, pls!

To make them write the text files for you, when your work is that.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "d" == deloptes   writes:

d> Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
EC> It's not. They are written in vimscript, analogous to elisp.
>> 
>> Sorry not. While Elisp is a Lisp dialect, therefore is a language
>> that has been formally proved to be equivalent to turing-machine,
>> that is not certain for vimscript.
>> 
>> And the elegance of the tool is more important that it seems at
>> first glance.

d> I've been listening at this BS at the university as well. Until now
d> I have not seen any practical or pragmatic use of this. I have
d> worked with PL and prolog for a while ... unfortunately I think in
d> coming years or decades it all will be declared dead ... when the
d> true AI from China will take over :D :D :D

I think that Lisp was used in AI because it was the best language you
could find to code smart algorithms on... Figure implementing mapcar
in assembler or FORTRAN :)

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

What does all this mean? was Re: text editors

[David Wright]

On Sat 30 Mar 2019 at 09:27:46 (+0100), deloptes wrote:
> David Wright wrote:
> 
> > Emacs has a huge repertoire of functionality accessible through its
> > commands, without any requirement to know or use *lisp. You sometimes
> > see some lisp-ish stuff on the screen when, say, using its help
> > system, but it can be ignored if you don't understand it. Just keep
> > feeding it files and commands.
> > 
> 
> The true religion behind Linux reveals!


Holier Linux believer ate thug's dinner!


Eighth nubile toiler reveres Linux!
And … ?


Cheers,
David.

Re: text editors

[mick crane]

On 2019-03-29 08:22, Erik Christiansen wrote:

On 29.03.19 17:26, Erik Christiansen wrote:

" Toggle relative line numbering.
function! NList_toggle()
if  == 1
 set nornu" For absolute, elide the 'r'.
  else
 set rnu  " For absolute, elide the 'r'.
  endif
endfun


Apologies. There's almost always something omitted when pasting from
elsewhere. Let's include the connection to the F1 key:

noremap  :call NList_toggle()

A more meaningful function name would be better, too.
(but important here is only the connection, and the toggling, for the
moment.)

Erik


thanks for these

mick
--
Key ID4BFEBB31

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

David Wright wrote:

> Emacs has a huge repertoire of functionality accessible through its
> commands, without any requirement to know or use *lisp. You sometimes
> see some lisp-ish stuff on the screen when, say, using its help
> system, but it can be ignored if you don't understand it. Just keep
> feeding it files and commands.
> 

The true religion behind Linux reveals!

Re: text editors

[Erik Christiansen]

On 30.03.19 01:29, deloptes wrote:
> John Hasler wrote:
> 
> > I'm not trying to persuade anyone to use Emacs.  I am trying to convince
> > people not to be deterred from trying it because of myths such as "You
> > can't use Emacs if you can't program in Lisp".
> 
> Sorry John, but all of this is obsolete, if you are pragmatic enough, you
> would admit it. Just take a step back and have a look from the other side.
> What I am trying to say is that it is not worth investing time in learning
> it - learning not lisp, but the whole emacs stuff and partially lisp,
> because as someone said sooner or later you need this or that - finally
> this is THE feature of emacs. If you do not take advantage of lisp, then
> why not use any other editor. Sorry!

As a 30 year vim/vi veteran, I'm not wildly predisposed to emacs, but
some of its users might prefer 3-key chords to vim's modality - having
to remember whether you're in normal or insert mode for minutes at the
time. (Unless you turn on an indicator. I change the cursor colour as
well as having mode displayed in the status line. Over-65s may be granted
that dispensation, perhaps.)

The only other editor I've used is the line editor, CREDIT. (Yes,
everything was in capitals only, IIRC.) That was 1981, and it was on
the Intel "Blue Box" MDS, complete with 8" floppy drives. (Harddrives
were only know on mainframes and top end minicomputers back then.)

Erik

Re: text editors

[David Wright]

On Sat 30 Mar 2019 at 01:29:48 (+0100), deloptes wrote:
> John Hasler wrote:
> 
> > I'm not trying to persuade anyone to use Emacs.  I am trying to convince
> > people not to be deterred from trying it because of myths such as "You
> > can't use Emacs if you can't program in Lisp".
> 
> Sorry John, but all of this is obsolete, if you are pragmatic enough, you
> would admit it. Just take a step back and have a look from the other side.

I'm finding it very difficult to follow your argument. What, exactly,
is obsolete. Using emacs, or the myth. If this thing is obsolete,
when was it current and when did it become obsolete?

And what do you mean by the other side? The side of the persuader, or
the side of the persuaded, or something else entirely.

> What I am trying to say is that it is not worth investing time in learning
> it - learning not lisp, but the whole emacs stuff and partially lisp,
> because as someone said sooner or later you need this or that - finally
> this is THE feature of emacs. If you do not take advantage of lisp, then
> why not use any other editor. Sorry!

Emacs has a huge repertoire of functionality accessible through its
commands, without any requirement to know or use *lisp. You sometimes
see some lisp-ish stuff on the screen when, say, using its help
system, but it can be ignored if you don't understand it. Just keep
feeding it files and commands.

People buy cars and drive them around without understanding what's
going on under the bonnet. Yes, you could learn to be a mechanic and
improve their performance but it's certainly not necessary. It would
be ridiculous to suggest that people shouldn't bother to learn to
drive unless they take courses in mechanics, and if they refuse,
to ask them why they didn't use uber instead.

Cheers,
David.

Re: text editors

[Jude DaShiell]

I started working for the Navy at an installation in Warminster PA.  The
experience with emacs David describes certainly happened on the base where
I worked.  The secretaries weren't told what they were doing was
programming so they developed and shared their own macros and as a result
of that, emacs became a legend on the base.  User services knew never to
disturb the emacs on the assistant technical director's computer or they
would get hurt.  The assistant technical director was number 3 in the
hierarchy on the base's org chart.  Above that position was the technical
director and above the technical director was the Admiral in command of
the base.



--

Re: text editors

[John Hasler]

I wrote:
> I am trying to convince people not to be deterred from trying it
> because of myths such as "You can't use Emacs if you can't program in
> Lisp".

Bob Bernstein writes:
> That last claim is really, really far from the truth. I know one of
> the old LISP programmers from the Kendall Square, Cambridge days, and
> he hates to use emacs.

I don't think anyone ever asserted that you must use Emacs if you do
program in Lisp.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: text editors

[Bob Bernstein]

On Fri, 29 Mar 2019, John Hasler wrote:

I am trying to convince people not to be deterred from 
trying it because of myths such as "You can't use Emacs 
if you can't program in Lisp".


That last claim is really, really far from the truth. I 
know one of the old LISP programmers from the Kendall 
Square, Cambridge days, and he hates to use emacs.


:)

--
Fraught with portent

Re: text editors

[David Wright]

On Fri 29 Mar 2019 at 19:22:47 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Friday 29 March 2019 19:08:20 deloptes wrote:
> > John Hasler wrote:
> > > deloptes writes:
> > >> I've been listening at this BS at the university as well. Until now
> > >> I have not seen any practical or pragmatic use of this.
> > >
> > > The results of ignoring it are evident all over the Web.
> >
> > this is true, unfortunately. It was 2009 when I finally gave up. If
> > found out that in every single are of science there is the mainstream
> > and the good stream, but the mainstream supressing the good stream ...
> > I was dreaming of applications programmed in PL, but found out that it
> > is not desired, so it is laughable how today everybody is talking of
> > AI. WTF! It's screwed at the base and unless things change there,
> > nothing will change else where.
> > This is crap and this whole discussion around emacs and lisp is
> > laughable as well - overblown text editor for what ... to write text
> > files?! Give me a break, pls!
> 
> +10 deloptes

I'm glad you understood it. Perhaps you could gloss it for me in a
private email.

> The editor is a personal choice. What I care about is what comes out of 
> it.

Of course you do. So do I. With a few exceptions, most of the work
I have done on computers has been the production of text files
(about which deloptes appears to be dismissive).

As a consequence, the text editor is one of the most important tools,
and what workperson doesn't care about their tools, seeking to improve
them, and to improve their ability to use them. I've already learnt
a couple of new things about emacs and, in another forum, I recently
learnt a few things about vi and its server (or daemon) mode.

But we all have to make choices about what we can spend time on.
Unfortunately, at the moment, any lisp dialect is well down the
list. Even if I had the time, my focus would be on the dialect
scheme and, in particular, guile. How much help that would be for
my use of emacs, I don't know.

Cheers,
David.

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

John Hasler wrote:

> I'm not trying to persuade anyone to use Emacs.  I am trying to convince
> people not to be deterred from trying it because of myths such as "You
> can't use Emacs if you can't program in Lisp".

Sorry John, but all of this is obsolete, if you are pragmatic enough, you
would admit it. Just take a step back and have a look from the other side.
What I am trying to say is that it is not worth investing time in learning
it - learning not lisp, but the whole emacs stuff and partially lisp,
because as someone said sooner or later you need this or that - finally
this is THE feature of emacs. If you do not take advantage of lisp, then
why not use any other editor. Sorry!

Re: text editors

[John Hasler]

I'm not trying to persuade anyone to use Emacs.  I am trying to convince
people not to be deterred from trying it because of myths such as "You
can't use Emacs if you can't program in Lisp".
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: text editors

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 29 March 2019 19:08:20 deloptes wrote:

> John Hasler wrote:
> > deloptes writes:
> >> I've been listening at this BS at the university as well. Until now
> >> I have not seen any practical or pragmatic use of this.
> >
> > The results of ignoring it are evident all over the Web.
>
> this is true, unfortunately. It was 2009 when I finally gave up. If
> found out that in every single are of science there is the mainstream
> and the good stream, but the mainstream supressing the good stream ...
> I was dreaming of applications programmed in PL, but found out that it
> is not desired, so it is laughable how today everybody is talking of
> AI. WTF! It's screwed at the base and unless things change there,
> nothing will change else where.
> This is crap and this whole discussion around emacs and lisp is
> laughable as well - overblown text editor for what ... to write text
> files?! Give me a break, pls!

+10 deloptes

The editor is a personal choice. What I care about is what comes out of 
it.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

John Hasler wrote:

> deloptes writes:
>> I've been listening at this BS at the university as well. Until now I
>> have not seen any practical or pragmatic use of this.
> 
> The results of ignoring it are evident all over the Web.

this is true, unfortunately. It was 2009 when I finally gave up. If found
out that in every single are of science there is the mainstream and the
good stream, but the mainstream supressing the good stream ... I was
dreaming of applications programmed in PL, but found out that it is not
desired, so it is laughable how today everybody is talking of AI. WTF! It's
screwed at the base and unless things change there, nothing will change
else where.
This is crap and this whole discussion around emacs and lisp is laughable as
well - overblown text editor for what ... to write text files?! Give me a
break, pls!

Re: text editors

[David Wright]

On Fri 29 Mar 2019 at 09:35:21 (+), Dekks Herton wrote:
> David Wright  writes:
> > On Thu 28 Mar 2019 at 08:30:47 (+), Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
> >> > "JH" == John Hasler  writes:
> >> 
> >> JH> deloptes writes:
> >> >> learning emacs means learning lisp
> >> 
> >> JH> Not true.
> >> 
> >> In my experience is true. But needs some more words.
> >> 
> >> When you intensively start using Emacs, and you start asking to the
> >> editor "Oh, True One Editor, what is the meaning of this keystroke?"
> >> () and see the answer, when you take a look to the .emacs of a more
> >> experienced user, you see, sooner or later you understand that there
> >> is a way to tell Emacs how "to do useful things"[*]. And since these
> >> things are useful to you, you learn to do them. Even if you do not
> >> know that what you are doing is "programming in LISP".
> >> 
> >> [*] I lost the source where I read that in an organization even
> >> secretaries used Emacs, and that these secretaries learnt how to do
> >> "useful things" without a problem. Mostly because they were unaware
> >> they were programming.
> >
> > I would have thought that secretaries were more competent at
> > cut-and-paste than I am, and that is the way in which I have assembled
> > my ~250 line emacs startup file. That, and substituting one string
> > for another in these pasted sections and seeing if they still work.
> > I'm afraid I don't call that programming in *lisp or learning *lisp.
> 
> Don't [•] secretaries, i've seen a lot that would make better programmers
> than whom they work looking at the macros they use.

[I assume that you meant to write some derogatory verb at • or else
it got lost, as did your entire comment in the other two versions
I've received from you.]

It's rather difficult to carry on a conversation unless you use the
same nouns to refer to things as others have used. Yes, when writing
literature, it makes sense to add some variety in one's choice of
words, but this is a technical forum. It was fairly obvious to me
that "secretaries" was being used as a term to refer to "people
engaged in clerical work". There are plenty of secretaries doing
far more sophisticated work than this and, as a job title, the term
reaches all the way to the top of organisations, with University
Secretaries, Secretaries of State and the like.

I think I made my point clearly enough: assembling a file of macros
that do useful things does not necessarily equate with programming
those said macros. I used my own startup file as an example.
It turned out that the example actually involved troff, ed and shell
rather than emacs and *lisp. It's probably easier for non-programmers
to cobble together useful shell scripts than to make headway in *lisp,
so without knowing to what level they took these scripts, it's
difficult to judge whether they *were* programming.

Back in the early 1970s, a 4-digit version of the game "Bulls and Cows"¹
was written using the line-by-line editor Edit (by Gill Cross) by
ingenious use of its single in-store buffer. If it wasn't written by
Frank King, who wrote such a game on the Titan at Cambridge, then it
was obviously inspired by it. That *was* programming.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulls_and_Cows

Cheers,
David.

Re: text editors

[John Hasler]

Gian writes:
> And the elegance of the tool is more important that it seems at first
> glance.

deloptes writes:
> I've been listening at this BS at the university as well. Until now I
> have not seen any practical or pragmatic use of this.

The results of ignoring it are evident all over the Web.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:

> EC> It's not. They are written in vimscript, analogous to elisp.
> 
> Sorry not. While Elisp is a Lisp dialect, therefore is a language that
> has been formally proved to be equivalent to turing-machine, that is
> not certain for vimscript.
> 
> And the elegance of the tool is more important that it seems at first
> glance.

I've been listening at this BS at the university as well. Until now I have
not seen any practical or pragmatic use of this. I have worked with PL and
prolog for a while ... unfortunately I think in coming years or decades it
all will be declared dead ... when the true AI from China will take
over :D :D :D

regards

Re: text editors

[Stefan Monnier]

> Sorry not.  While Elisp is a Lisp dialect, therefore is a language that
> has been formally proved to be equivalent to turing-machine, that is
> not certain for vimscript.

Vimscript may not be as elegant and powerful as Elisp, but there is no
doubt that it is Turing-complete (pretty much any language with a `while`
loop and some kind of dynamic allocation is Turing-complete, so it's
a pretty low bar).
It's a full-blown programming language.


Stefan

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "EC" == Erik Christiansen  writes:

EC> Yes, yes, reflexive combativeness is jolly good fun, but
EC> understanding is more useful in the long term.

In my experience, if the language is elegant and wise, you can write
your code "easily" and often you get better coding.

EC> word used refers to being an analogue, i.e. taking the same place
EC> in the other editor.

As someone else wisely pointed out in this thread (my apologies for
forgetting the name), Emacs is built in Lisp, the interpreter and some
speed critical parts are coded in C, but the latter are somewhat "C
coded Lisp objects".

Differently from other tools that can be extended with "plugins", in
Emacs is simpler to pass from the "I know which key to press" to the
"I know what code to write" - provided you have some minimal knowledge
of Lisp syntax and constructs - because in Emacs every keystroke
triggers a function call and you Emacs tells you which function is
invoked, how to use it and even, if you have the lisp sources
installed, see its implementation. That's how some "random amateur
lisp coder" was able to bang the original html-helper-mode to the tool
he used to survive ASP pages :).

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "EC" == Erik Christiansen  writes:

EC> On 28.03.19 21:32, Matyáš Bobek wrote:
>> I reckon writing vim extensions in C must be quite obscure... How
>> is it done?

EC> It's not. They are written in vimscript, analogous to elisp.

Sorry not. While Elisp is a Lisp dialect, therefore is a language that
has been formally proved to be equivalent to turing-machine, that is
not certain for vimscript.

And the elegance of the tool is more important that it seems at first
glance.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[John Hasler]

Gian quotes:
> " It seems to me that there have been two really clean, consistent
> models of programming so far: the C model and the Lisp model. These
> two seem points of high ground, with swampy lowlands between them. As
> computers have grown more powerful, the new languages being developed
> have been moving steadily toward the Lisp model."

deloptes writes:
> Was this statement made before OOP came to the world?

OOP is to the swamp between Lisp and C as the Everglades are to the wet
spot in my pasture.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: text editors

[Erik Christiansen]

On 29.03.19 10:50, Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
> > "EC" == Erik Christiansen  writes:
> 
> EC> Yes, yes, reflexive combativeness is jolly good fun, but
> EC> understanding is more useful in the long term.
> 
> In my experience, if the language is elegant and wise, you can write
> your code "easily" and often you get better coding.
> 
> EC> word used refers to being an analogue, i.e. taking the same place
> EC> in the other editor.
> 
> As someone else wisely pointed out in this thread (my apologies for
> forgetting the name), Emacs is built in Lisp, the interpreter and some
> speed critical parts are coded in C, but the latter are somewhat "C
> coded Lisp objects".
> 
> Differently from other tools that can be extended with "plugins", in
> Emacs is simpler to pass from the "I know which key to press" to the
> "I know what code to write" - provided you have some minimal knowledge
> of Lisp syntax and constructs - because in Emacs every keystroke
> triggers a function call and you Emacs tells you which function is
> invoked, how to use it and even, if you have the lisp sources
> installed, see its implementation. That's how some "random amateur
> lisp coder" was able to bang the original html-helper-mode to the tool
> he used to survive ASP pages :).

Yup, again, output-only mode - unrelated to input. A ROM-based monologue
doesn't make for much of a conversation, certainly not a thoughtful one.

Erik

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "d" == deloptes   writes:

d> Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
>> " It seems to me that there have been two really clean, consistent
>> models of programming so far: the C model and the Lisp model. These
>> two seem points of high ground, with swampy lowlands between
>> them. As computers have grown more powerful, the new languages
>> being developed have been moving steadily toward the Lisp model."

d> Was this statement made before OOP came to the world?

Nope. If you go and read the whole article you understand his point.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "d" == deloptes   writes:

>> The trick with Emacs is doing as much things you can with one
>> istance, avoding continual start and stops.

d> Don't know! Really!

Not all are as smart as you are.

a> One can live and do everything without Emacs.

Indeed. But will lose the fun :)

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "EC" == Erik Christiansen  writes:

EC> When leading software development teams, I never asked team
EC> members which editor they favoured, either at hiring interview, or
EC> later. We just agreed on coding standards, and they configured
EC> their editors to conform.



-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Erik Christiansen]

On 29.03.19 10:44, deloptes wrote:
> One can live and do everything without Emacs. 

Can't resist paraphrasing that in light of Emacs' OS-like reputation:

One can live and do everything within Emacs ... or without.

I would be tempted to have a look at ne, except that my fingers would
just continue to work vim-wise, after more than 30 years of daily vim/vi 
use, up to 8 hrs per day. 

When leading software development teams, I never asked team members
which editor they favoured, either at hiring interview, or later. We
just agreed on coding standards, and they configured their editors to
conform. 

Erik

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:

> " It seems to me that there have been two really clean, consistent
> models of programming so far: the C model and the Lisp model. These
> two seem points of high ground, with swampy lowlands between them. As
> computers have grown more powerful, the new languages being developed
> have been moving steadily toward the Lisp model."

Was this statement made before OOP came to the world?

looks like

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:

> If your work comprises repetitive tasks that can be automated, then
> Emacs can help you a lot.
> 
> If you have several, unrelated, small tasks, theni firing up vim and
> then closing it may be a good choice.
> 
> The trick with Emacs is doing as much things you can with one istance,
> avoding continual start and stops.

Don't know! Really!
I use some time Makefile or ansible recently for various things. I still do
not find pragmatic reason for learning Emacs. As said before this is only
my opinion, but I think it is important mentioning this, given the
propaganda around Emacs. One can live and do everything without Emacs. For
the enthusiasts, they are free to to choose how deep they dive into Emacs.

regards

Re: text editors

[Dekks Herton]

David Wright  writes:

> On Thu 28 Mar 2019 at 08:30:47 (+), Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
>> > "JH" == John Hasler  writes:
>> 
>> JH> deloptes writes:
>> >> learning emacs means learning lisp
>> 
>> JH> Not true.
>> 
>> In my experience is true. But needs some more words.
>> 
>> When you intensively start using Emacs, and you start asking to the
>> editor "Oh, True One Editor, what is the meaning of this keystroke?"
>> () and see the answer, when you take a look to the .emacs of a more
>> experienced user, you see, sooner or later you understand that there
>> is a way to tell Emacs how "to do useful things"[*]. And since these
>> things are useful to you, you learn to do them. Even if you do not
>> know that what you are doing is "programming in LISP".
>> 
>> [*] I lost the source where I read that in an organization even
>> secretaries used Emacs, and that these secretaries learnt how to do
>> "useful things" without a problem. Mostly because they were unaware
>> they were programming.
>
> I would have thought that secretaries were more competent at
> cut-and-paste than I am, and that is the way in which I have assembled
> my ~250 line emacs startup file. That, and substituting one string
> for another in these pasted sections and seeing if they still work.
> I'm afraid I don't call that programming in *lisp or learning *lisp.
>
> Some of the code dates back to lenny, and I have no idea whether it
> ought still to be there, or whether it's having a desirable or
> undesirable effect. I suspect it, and some other bits have atrophied.
>
> When I read through it (like now), I find useful things that I'd
> forgotten I had set up. OTOH I rely on much of it all the time.
>
> If you call the programming/learning, then that's where our
> disagreement lies, and not in emacs at all. You could equally
> be talking about those incantations that I feed to ALSA.
>
> Cheers,
> David.
>

-- 
Regards.
 
PGP Fingerprint: 3DF8 311C 4740 B5BC 3867  72DF 1050 452F 9BCE BA00

Re: text editors

[Dekks Herton]

David Wright  writes:

> On Thu 28 Mar 2019 at 08:30:47 (+), Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
>> > "JH" == John Hasler  writes:
>> 
>> JH> deloptes writes:
>> >> learning emacs means learning lisp
>> 
>> JH> Not true.
>> 
>> In my experience is true. But needs some more words.
>> 
>> When you intensively start using Emacs, and you start asking to the
>> editor "Oh, True One Editor, what is the meaning of this keystroke?"
>> () and see the answer, when you take a look to the .emacs of a more
>> experienced user, you see, sooner or later you understand that there
>> is a way to tell Emacs how "to do useful things"[*]. And since these
>> things are useful to you, you learn to do them. Even if you do not
>> know that what you are doing is "programming in LISP".
>> 
>> [*] I lost the source where I read that in an organization even
>> secretaries used Emacs, and that these secretaries learnt how to do
>> "useful things" without a problem. Mostly because they were unaware
>> they were programming.
>
> I would have thought that secretaries were more competent at
> cut-and-paste than I am, and that is the way in which I have assembled
> my ~250 line emacs startup file. That, and substituting one string
> for another in these pasted sections and seeing if they still work.
> I'm afraid I don't call that programming in *lisp or learning *lisp.

Don't secretaries, i've seen a lot that would make better programmers
than whom they work looking at the macros they use.

> Some of the code dates back to lenny, and I have no idea whether it
> ought still to be there, or whether it's having a desirable or
> undesirable effect. I suspect it, and some other bits have atrophied.
>
> When I read through it (like now), I find useful things that I'd
> forgotten I had set up. OTOH I rely on much of it all the time.
>
> If you call the programming/learning, then that's where our
> disagreement lies, and not in emacs at all. You could equally
> be talking about those incantations that I feed to ALSA.
>
> Cheers,
> David.
>

-- 
Regards.
 
PGP Fingerprint: 3DF8 311C 4740 B5BC 3867  72DF 1050 452F 9BCE BA00

Re: text editors

[Erik Christiansen]

On 29.03.19 08:47, Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
> > "EC" == Erik Christiansen  writes:
> 
> EC> On 28.03.19 21:32, Matyáš Bobek wrote:
> >> I reckon writing vim extensions in C must be quite obscure... How
> >> is it done?
> 
> EC> It's not. They are written in vimscript, analogous to elisp.
> 
> Sorry not. While Elisp is a Lisp dialect, therefore is a language that
> has been formally proved to be equivalent to turing-machine, that is
> not certain for vimscript.

Yes, yes, reflexive combativeness is jolly good fun, but understanding
is more useful in the long term. The statement you think you've replied
to would seem to use "equal"¹, but the actual word used refers to being an
analogue, i.e. taking the same place in the other editor.

Erik

¹ As in "of equal standing", perhaps.

-- 
No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while
you'll see why.
   - Mignon McLaughlin

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "d" == deloptes   writes:

d> My personal choice is ne on debian. For everything else there are
d> decent editors with GUI. My preference is eclipse and kate ... but
d> it also doesn't matter. I simply can not find any logical or
d> practical argument learning or using emacs ... and I work with
d> linux servers on daily bases.

If your work comprises repetitive tasks that can be automated, then
Emacs can help you a lot.

If you have several, unrelated, small tasks, theni firing up vim and
then closing it may be a good choice.

The trick with Emacs is doing as much things you can with one istance,
avoding continual start and stops.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "d" == deloptes   writes:

d> Pierre Fourès wrote:
>>> So there are many nifty things in Emacs. But the real killer is
>>> the integration of all those nifty things.
>>> 
>> 
>> Wow, this gave me the desire to give a real serious try to Emacs !

d> Don't sell your soul to the devil (jokingly) :D

Sorry, the editor of the devil is vi (six in roman): vi vi vi!

Emacs is the Only Editor!

In article , 
in response to an infidel, Per Abrahamsen  wrote:  

PA> On the other hand, an argument can be made that Emacs *is* an os.  
PA> You can't get much closer to the os than that.

  Although I agree with you on the fundamental idea, I am afraid that
this sentence diminishes The One Editor, and disposes of one of its
fundamental mysteries; were we all not to know your usually perfect
orthodoxy, cries of blasphemy would be heard.

  Emacs (let His name be honoured forever) is not only an OS; it is an
OS *and* a programming language (The One Programming Language -- see
alt.religion.lisp) *and* a set of editors, the programming language
being the personnification of the link between the editors and the
OS.  Whether Emacs is One in Three or Three in One remains an open
theological question.

  Let the benediction of Emacs always be upon your head,

( - inserted by name)

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "d" == deloptes   writes:

d> John Hasler wrote:
>> In fact, much of what we now know as Emacs *is* extensions written
>> in Elisp and many more extensions are available.  You no more need
>> to know Elisp to use them or to install additional ones than you
>> need to know C to use Vim.

d> I prefer learning C ;-)

http://www.paulgraham.com/rootsoflisp.html

" It seems to me that there have been two really clean, consistent
models of programming so far: the C model and the Lisp model. These
two seem points of high ground, with swampy lowlands between them. As
computers have grown more powerful, the new languages being developed
have been moving steadily toward the Lisp model."

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Erik Christiansen]

On 29.03.19 17:26, Erik Christiansen wrote:
> " Toggle relative line numbering.
> function! NList_toggle()
> if  == 1
>  set nornu" For absolute, elide the 'r'.
>   else
>  set rnu  " For absolute, elide the 'r'.
>   endif
> endfun

Apologies. There's almost always something omitted when pasting from
elsewhere. Let's include the connection to the F1 key:

noremap  :call NList_toggle()

A more meaningful function name would be better, too.
(but important here is only the connection, and the toggling, for the
moment.)

Erik

Re: text editors

[Teemu Likonen]

Erik Christiansen [2019-03-29 16:26:41+11] wrote:

> It's not. They [Vim extensions] are written in vimscript, analogous to
> elisp.

Vim script is analogous to Emacs Lisp in the point of view that both of
them are used to extend and configure the editor. There is also
important difference which comes from the environment.

Vim is written in the C language which provides the editor interface and
the programming environment for Vim script. Some Vim's features are
written in Vim script language.

Emacs's core is written in the C language but the relation to Emacs Lisp
is different from Vim. Very big part of the editor and the Lisp
environment is written in Emacs Lisp. So Emacs Lisp is not only an
extension language or a scripting language. It's also the
_implementation_ language of the Emacs system itself. This means that
Emacs developers and Emacs users mostly work on the same language and
users can go much deeper into the Emacs core than in Vim's case.

For example, text buffers are first-class Lisp objects in the Emacs
system, just like integers, strings and other usual programming language
objects. Below is an example with "M-x ielm" REPL:

ELISP> (type-of "foo")
string
ELISP> (current-buffer)
#
ELISP> (type-of (current-buffer))
buffer

-- 
/// Teemu Likonen   - .-..    //
// PGP: 4E10 55DC 84E9 DFF6 13D7 8557 719D 69D3 2453 9450 ///


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Re: text editors

[Erik Christiansen]

On 27.03.19 11:07, mick crane wrote:
> On 2019-03-26 19:27, Wayne Sallee wrote:
> > I use vim.
> > 
> > Log in as user that will use vim, and run the following command:
> > 
> > cat > .vimrc << "EOF"
> > set nosi noai
> > set number
> > 
> I have line numbers as the default but copy/paste with the mouse also copies
> the numbers so I have to turn it on and off.

True, so it's handy to be able to toggle them on and off on a single
keystroke. I use F1, as it is easy to find. This vimscript in .vimrc
then implements the switch, in my case for _relative_ line numbers, as
they allow e.g. y7+ to copy current line plus the lines down to a chosen
point, without having to count the lines. That's a greater productivity
improver than just knowing you're on line 27423:

" Toggle relative line numbering.
function! NList_toggle()
if  == 1
 set nornu" For absolute, elide the 'r'.
  else
 set rnu  " For absolute, elide the 'r'.
  endif
endfun

To avoid stairstepped insert when pasting that here from the clipboard,
I have F12 mapped to:

set pastetoggle= "  is easier. (See "Paste")

I tend to forget that I also have the alternative:

" Paste
" Paste without needing pastetoggle to avoid staircase text, due to ai always 
set.
" Works with "+y in another vim instance. Also avoids wrapping.
nnoremap  "+p
inoremap  ^["+p^Mi
nnoremap  "+y

(The ^[ is entered as control-v Esc, and ^M as control-v Enter, but you
knew that.)

 is Alt-p. Your choice of invoking key may differ.

So, yep, Vim does allow two-key chords, and the distinction from Emacs
reduces a little when you do that. Vimscript may look a little C-like in
places, but that can't be helped. (Awk is also significantly C-like.
Perl is much more successful at voiding the benefit of common language
know-how.)

Erik

Re: text editors

[Erik Christiansen]

On 28.03.19 21:32, Matyáš Bobek wrote:
> I reckon writing vim extensions in C must be quite obscure... How is it
> done?

It's not. They are written in vimscript, analogous to elisp. There is a
large landscape of add-ons written in the language, and a choice of
managers to automate the minor tedium of installing them in the right
place. The few bits of vimscript in my .vimrc are minimal, such as a
function to append section length in lines or pages when the section is
folded.

Erik

Re: text editors

[Erik Christiansen]

On 28.03.19 12:34, rlhar...@oplink.net wrote:
> Once you start using Emacs macros and see the benefit, you likely shall find
> yourself creating and using numerous macros within each editing session.
> You demonstrate once to the robot, and the robot faithfully mimics you,
> without error.  The only question is whether you are willing to teach the
> robot by recording your keystrokes in a macro (it takes two keystrokes

in Vim or Emacs. 

> ).

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

Matyáš Bobek wrote:

> I reckon writing vim extensions in C must be quite obscure... How is it
> done?

I just started with C and never needed to write extension so far, but I did
use C to solve some kernel bugs :D

Re: text editors

[Matyáš Bobek]

I reckon writing vim extensions in C must be quite obscure... How is it
done?

On 3/28/19 9:24 PM, deloptes wrote:
> John Hasler wrote:
>
>> In fact, much of what we now know as Emacs *is* extensions written in
>> Elisp and many more extensions are available.  You no more need to know
>> Elisp to use them or to install additional ones than you need to know C
>> to use Vim.
> I prefer learning C ;-)
>
-- 
Matyáš Bobek

// PGP: D4C6 A4B7 F978 A4FD 34A6  1EBE F796 E3F7 ED66 5933 //




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Re: text editors

[deloptes]

Pierre Fourès wrote:

>> So there are many nifty things in Emacs. But the real killer
>> is the integration of all those nifty things.
>>
> 
> Wow, this gave me the desire to give a real serious try to Emacs !

Don't sell your soul to the devil (jokingly) :D

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

John Hasler wrote:

> In fact, much of what we now know as Emacs *is* extensions written in
> Elisp and many more extensions are available.  You no more need to know
> Elisp to use them or to install additional ones than you need to know C
> to use Vim.

I prefer learning C ;-)

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:

> d> really, I did not know that you could be me and you knew my
> d> experience.  Anyway emacs is not bad for those who know it, but it
> d> is impractical because you have mostly vim installed, so learning
> d> vim is a must indeed.
> 
> Your words would be very different if you had only vi, not vim.
> 

Last time I have seen only vi in crippled variant was on Solaris8 in 2007.
The first time I was free for couple of hours between two projects I
compiled vim ... I received many cups of coffee from everyone useing the
~60+ Solaris systems in the landscape.

> Learn how to do little things with vi is useful indeed, even ed,
> chances are you could work in a situation where libcurses is gone.
> 
> But vim is an attempt to rewrite emacs the wrong way.
> 
Anyway no need to advocate for emacs or vim. Usually you get linux with vim
you can invoke like vi or vim.

My personal choice is ne on debian. For everything else there are decent
editors with GUI. My preference is eclipse and kate ... but it also doesn't
matter. I simply can not find any logical or practical argument learning or
using emacs ... and I work with linux servers on daily bases.

Come one - this is just about sharing opinions!

regards

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> Eating roquefort is impractical because you gotta drink wine anyway :-)
> 
hahaha, true!

> Look -- you can do both (I do). If you're looking for excuses to stay
> away from Emacs: no need to, just do. But as little need to spread FUD
> about Emacs. Yes, Emacs is a decent editor. No, you don't /have/ to
> know Lisp to use it. Yes, if you do learn Lisp, you get powers few
> other editors give you. Yes, Emacs is somewhat idiosincratic (as Vi(m)
> is -- most powerful editors seem to be).

I've been there exactly 17y ago. I still have no idea where lisp is used
except in Emacs and some exotic projects, so being pragmatic ... good for
you who know emacs - for the rest good that you do not know emacs. I can
not be more balanced :)

regards

keyboard macros (was: Re: text editors)

[rhkramer]

Not responding specifically to the following, but keyboard / keystroke macros 
are not a strictly EMACS function, and I don't think EMACS was first.  I can't 
remember all of them, I do know nedit has them, I sort of recall that wordstar 
or the shareware editor that used the same keyboard shortcuts (on DOS) also 
had them,

Just saying, you don't need EMACS to get the benefit of keyboard macros.

On Thursday, March 28, 2019 01:34:49 PM rlhar...@oplink.net wrote:
> But when the first task is going to take an hour and severely tax your
> manual (finger) dexterity, whereas the replacement takes about a minute
> and requires only a bit of mental dexterity...  The end-of-day morale is
> boosted by such success in boosting productivity.
> 
> Once you start using Emacs macros and see the benefit, you likely shall
> find yourself creating and using numerous macros within each editing
> session.  You demonstrate once to the robot, and the robot faithfully
> mimics you, without error.  The only question is whether you are willing
> to teach the robot by recording your keystrokes in a macro (it takes two
> keystrokes).

Re: text editors

[rlharris]

On 2019.03.28 03:16, Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:

"r" == rlharris   writes:

r> Need to make alterations to dozens of lines?  If you can figure out
r> a repetitive sequence of keystrokes to accomplish the change, you

...

Or said with other words:
- replace a repetitive task where you are part of a machine the
  "Metropolis" way with the task of creating an automatic solution.


But when the first task is going to take an hour and severely tax your 
manual (finger) dexterity, whereas the replacement takes about a minute 
and requires only a bit of mental dexterity...  The end-of-day morale is 
boosted by such success in boosting productivity.


Once you start using Emacs macros and see the benefit, you likely shall 
find yourself creating and using numerous macros within each editing 
session.  You demonstrate once to the robot, and the robot faithfully 
mimics you, without error.  The only question is whether you are willing 
to teach the robot by recording your keystrokes in a macro (it takes two 
keystrokes).

Re: text editors

[Curt]

On 2019-03-28, John Hasler  wrote:
> Gian writes:
>> [*] I lost the source where I read that in an organization even
>> secretaries used Emacs, and that these secretaries learnt how to do
>> "useful things" without a problem. Mostly because they were unaware
>> they were programming.
>
> It was secretaries in the patent department at Bell Labs.  They were
> using troff and friends on Unix for typesetting and learned to write
> shell scripts.  This probably all happened before Emacs was operational.
> They would have been editing with Ed.

I think a gorilla learned sign language once.

This is much more impressive, though. 

Re: text editors

[Pierre Fourès]

Le jeu. 28 mars 2019 à 11:32,  a écrit :
>
> If you find that interesting...
>
> imagine you're running your emacs (as a server) and want to
> [...]
>
> Bam :-)
>
> So there are many nifty things in Emacs. But the real killer
> is the integration of all those nifty things.
>

Wow, this gave me the desire to give a real serious try to Emacs !

Re: text editors

[John Hasler]

Gian writes:
> [*] I lost the source where I read that in an organization even
> secretaries used Emacs, and that these secretaries learnt how to do
> "useful things" without a problem. Mostly because they were unaware
> they were programming.

It was secretaries in the patent department at Bell Labs.  They were
using troff and friends on Unix for typesetting and learned to write
shell scripts.  This probably all happened before Emacs was operational.
They would have been editing with Ed.
-- 
John "Bell Labs secretaries may have been a bit above average" Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: text editors

[David Wright]

On Thu 28 Mar 2019 at 08:30:47 (+), Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
> > "JH" == John Hasler  writes:
> 
> JH> deloptes writes:
> >> learning emacs means learning lisp
> 
> JH> Not true.
> 
> In my experience is true. But needs some more words.
> 
> When you intensively start using Emacs, and you start asking to the
> editor "Oh, True One Editor, what is the meaning of this keystroke?"
> () and see the answer, when you take a look to the .emacs of a more
> experienced user, you see, sooner or later you understand that there
> is a way to tell Emacs how "to do useful things"[*]. And since these
> things are useful to you, you learn to do them. Even if you do not
> know that what you are doing is "programming in LISP".
> 
> [*] I lost the source where I read that in an organization even
> secretaries used Emacs, and that these secretaries learnt how to do
> "useful things" without a problem. Mostly because they were unaware
> they were programming.

I would have thought that secretaries were more competent at
cut-and-paste than I am, and that is the way in which I have assembled
my ~250 line emacs startup file. That, and substituting one string
for another in these pasted sections and seeing if they still work.
I'm afraid I don't call that programming in *lisp or learning *lisp.

Some of the code dates back to lenny, and I have no idea whether it
ought still to be there, or whether it's having a desirable or
undesirable effect. I suspect it, and some other bits have atrophied.

When I read through it (like now), I find useful things that I'd
forgotten I had set up. OTOH I rely on much of it all the time.

If you call the programming/learning, then that's where our
disagreement lies, and not in emacs at all. You could equally
be talking about those incantations that I feed to ALSA.

Cheers,
David.

Understanding (some) Lisp (was: Re: text editors)

[rhkramer]

As an exercise for myself (having once had to "learn" Lisp in school, and more 
than once having tried to learn to use EMACS (before the days of the mouse and 
menu, iirc)), I decided to see if I could understand any of the code.

I think I got the gist of most of it, but I don't understand why the double 
parenthesis around "((inhibit-read-only t))"?

On Monday, March 25, 2019 08:29:17 AM Teemu Likonen wrote:
> GNU Emacs has text properties which can be added to any piece of text.
> One of the properties is named "read-only". I made two functions to
> handle the situation you described.
> 
> Put these function to you Emacs's init file (~/.emacs or
> ~/.emacs.d/init.el):
> 
> 
> (defun read-only-region (beg end)
>   "Makes a region in the current buffer read only, from buffer
> position BEG to END. If this function is called interactively use
> the current hightlighted region."
>   (interactive "r")
>   (add-text-properties beg end '(read-only t)))
> 
> (defun remove-read-only ()
>   "Remove all read only text properties from the current buffer."
>   (interactive)
>   (let ((inhibit-read-only t))
> (remove-text-properties (point-min) (point-max)
> '(read-only t
> 
> 
> Select some text in a buffer and execute command "Alt+x
> read-only-region". That area becomes read only. To remove all read only
> text areas from the current buffer execute command "Alt+x
> remove-read-only".

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "JH" == John Hasler  writes:

JH> In fact, much of what we now know as Emacs *is* extensions written
JH> in Elisp and many more extensions are available.

Emacs is written mostly in Elisp. What is not in lisp, AFAIK, is the
interpreter and the most used and heavy functions.

JH> You no more need
JH> to know Elisp to use them or to install additional ones than you
JH> need to know C to use Vim.

Perfect!


-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "JH" == John Hasler  writes:

JH> deloptes writes:
>> learning emacs means learning lisp

JH> Not true.

In my experience is true. But needs some more words.

When you intensively start using Emacs, and you start asking to the
editor "Oh, True One Editor, what is the meaning of this keystroke?"
() and see the answer, when you take a look to the .emacs of a more
experienced user, you see, sooner or later you understand that there
is a way to tell Emacs how "to do useful things"[*]. And since these
things are useful to you, you learn to do them. Even if you do not
know that what you are doing is "programming in LISP".

[*] I lost the source where I read that in an organization even
secretaries used Emacs, and that these secretaries learnt how to do
"useful things" without a problem. Mostly because they were unaware
they were programming.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[tomas]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 09:15:19AM -0500, John Hasler wrote:
> David writes:
> > So we're left wondering why you've stated that learning emacs
> > necessarily involves learning lisp, either beforehand or at the same
> > time.

[...]

> There is also the fact that the configuration file is written in Elisp
> and one once had to know at least a tiny bit of Elisp to edit it [...]

That's as if you say you gotta know Javascript to edit a JSON file.
Well... yes, kinda :-)

Cheers
-- t


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Re: text editors

[John Hasler]

David writes:
> So we're left wondering why you've stated that learning emacs
> necessarily involves learning lisp, either beforehand or at the same
> time.

Probably because Emacs advocates often over-enthuse about extensibility,
giving the erroneous impression that knowing how to write extensions is a
necessary part of knowing how to use Emacs.

In fact, much of what we now know as Emacs *is* extensions written in
Elisp and many more extensions are available.  You no more need to know
Elisp to use them or to install additional ones than you need to know C
to use Vim.

There is also the fact that the configuration file is written in Elisp
and one once had to know at least a tiny bit of Elisp to edit it.  Now
there is a configuration interface to handle that but the myth lingers
on, along with the myth that one needs to memorize hundreds of esoteric
escape sequences.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: text editors

[tomas]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 08:00:27AM -0500, John Hasler wrote:
> Gian Uberto Lauri writes:
> > But vim is an attempt to rewrite emacs the wrong way.
> 
> I don't think that's fair [...]

Me neither. And this is slowly sliding into That Kind Of
Flame War. I had that already... over twenty years ago.

I don't think I need that again.

Cheers & enjoy
-- tomás


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Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "JH" == John Hasler  writes:

JH> Gian Uberto Lauri writes:
>> But vim is an attempt to rewrite emacs the wrong way.

JH> I don't think that's fair.

I disagree. After all Editor MACroS was once a set of macros for an
editor called TECO, while vim is an extension of vi - that required
even the add of the macro language, AFAIK.

And a "roughly Turing-complete mini-language", sorry, is not a good
thing. Expecially whenn compared with a language that was borne as
a demonstrated Turing-complete formalism :).

Vim may have been a good thing under Amiga (where there were editors
you could have controlled with Arexx, doing _very_ nice automation
jobs :) ).

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[David Wright]

On Thu 28 Mar 2019 at 07:51:53 (+0100), deloptes wrote:
> John Hasler wrote:
> 
> > Not true.

[… in response to "exactly - learning emacs means learning lisp - what
for? I switched years ago to ne."]

> really, I did not know that you could be me and you knew my experience.
> Anyway emacs is not bad for those who know it, but it is impractical because
> you have mostly vim installed, so learning vim is a must indeed.
> 
> If you use debian I recommend learning ne - a great editor unfortunately not
> installed by default.

Please, if you're going to criticise someone's comment, include their
comment in your quoting.

If you think that it requires being you or knowing your experience to
judge the statement "learning emacs means learning lisp", then it's
likely that you don't understand what the word "means" means when used
like that.

So we're left wondering why you've stated that learning emacs
necessarily involves learning lisp, either beforehand or at the
same time. I've been using, and learning, emacs for over two
decades and I have no knowledge of lisp other than
. it's used to implement emacs,
. there are lots of dialects,
. it uses lots and lots of parentheses.

Cheers,
David.

Re: text editors

[John Hasler]

Gian Uberto Lauri writes:
> But vim is an attempt to rewrite emacs the wrong way.

I don't think that's fair.  Vim is an attempt to extend Vi.  I don't
like it and always run it in "compatible" mode, but that's because Vi
was the first text editor I learned.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

>writes:

> imagine you're running your emacs (as a server) and want to edit
> that one system file (say /etc/apt/sources.list) as sudo (without
> starting an Emacs instance as root).

I do not like sudo. In my NSHO it has a lot of hidden traps and is
shipped in a way that [profanities].

>   M-x find-file  /sudo::/etc/apt/sources.list

But _this_ is interesting, and here advantages offset problems.  The
perfect thing should be know which tools are used by tramp, so that a
sensible sudo configuration may be provided.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[to...@tuxteam.de]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 11:47:02AM +, Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:

[snipped the big CC list, probably unintentional]

> In Italian, sudo means "I sweat" :)

In Spanish too: perhaps that's why I like it.
I long for summers...

Cheers
-- t


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Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "td" == tomas@tuxteam de  writes:

td> On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 11:07:58AM +, Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
>> >  writes:

td> To each its own, hey. As long as you don't sling profanities at me

Unless you are sudo mantainer :) :) :) (and even in that case, it's
the way sudo is configured by default i disagree with, not the person
that deserve anything)

td> (I /do/ like sudo) all is well :-)

In Italian, sudo means "I sweat" :)

td> But for you, Tramp comes also with an /su: "method". And /plink:
td> for those poor folks trapped in a Windows client with PuTTy. And
td> /smb: and... OK, OK. Read the docs [1] :-)

td> Tramp is utterly nifty, but there's more.

Thank you once more.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[to...@tuxteam.de]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 11:07:58AM +, Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
> >writes:

[Tramp sudo method]

> I do not like sudo. In my NSHO it has a lot of hidden traps and is
> shipped in a way that [profanities].

To each its own, hey. As long as you don't sling profanities at me
(I /do/ like sudo) all is well :-)

But for you, Tramp comes also with an /su: "method". And /plink: for
those poor folks trapped in a Windows client with PuTTy. And /smb:
and... OK, OK. Read the docs [1] :-)

Tramp is utterly nifty, but there's more.

Cheers

[1] 
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/tramp/Quick-Start-Guide.html#Quick-Start-Guide
-- t


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Re: text editors

[tomas]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 08:32:40AM +, Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:
> > "TL" == Teemu Likonen  writes:
> 
> 
> TL> $ emacs /ssh:user@middle-machine\|ssh:user@target-machine:file
> 
> This is wickedly interesting!

If you find that interesting...

imagine you're running your emacs (as a server) and want to
edit that one system file (say /etc/apt/sources.list) as sudo
(without starting an Emacs instance as root).

  M-x find-file  /sudo::/etc/apt/sources.list

(key binding for find-file is C-x C-f, or just use a GUI menu).

will do the trick. It asks you for the necessary password and
will cache it for a configurable time. Should it time out, it'll
ask you again.

The above /ssh:... pattern will have another advantage: if,
while you edit the file, the ssh connection times out or breaks
down, it'll reconnect if necessary (asking you for your password
or ssh key passphrase, as the case may be -- unless your ssh
agent is already taking care of that).

Now imagine you have an ssh access as myuser to myvirtualserver.com.

To edit *there*, as sudo, simply do:

  C-x C-f 
ssh:myu...@myvirtualserver.com|sudo:myvirtualserver.com:/etc/apt/sources.list

This is all courtesy of Tramp, the library for access files
in "non-standard places".

Now enter Org-Mode. This is a kind of markup language (somewhat
reminiscent of Markdown). There you can have links to other
files (or positions therein). Those links can be Tramp paths
as illustrated above.

Bam :-)

So there are many nifty things in Emacs. But the real killer
is the integration of all those nifty things.

Cheers
-- tomás


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Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "d" == deloptes   writes:

d> really, I did not know that you could be me and you knew my
d> experience.  Anyway emacs is not bad for those who know it, but it
d> is impractical because you have mostly vim installed, so learning
d> vim is a must indeed.

Your words would be very different if you had only vi, not vim.

Learn how to do little things with vi is useful indeed, even ed,
chances are you could work in a situation where libcurses is gone.

But vim is an attempt to rewrite emacs the wrong way.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "TL" == Teemu Likonen  writes:


TL> $ emacs /ssh:user@middle-machine\|ssh:user@target-machine:file

This is wickedly interesting!

  T H A N KY O U !

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "r" == rlharris   writes:

r> As well as being easy to use for general word processing, Emacs
r> excels in the work of writing scripts, in which the
r> "COMPOSE-A-NEW-MACRO-WHENEVER-YOU-NEED-IT;IT-TAKES-ONLY-A-FEW-SECONDS"
r> ability of Emacs is invaluable.  After all, the name Emacs is an
r> acronym for "Editing MACroS".

r> Need to make alterations to dozens of lines?  If you can figure out
r> a repetitive sequence of keystrokes to accomplish the change, you
r> can save that sequence as a macro.  And those keystrokes can
r> involve searches and operations such as "advance one word", "go to
r> string xxYYz", "go to end of line", "replace xxx with yyy", and so
r> forth.

Or said with other words:

- replace a repetitive task where you are part of a machine the
  "Metropolis" way with the task of creating an automatic solution.

This has a lot to do with your morale at the end of the work day :).

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[tomas]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 08:39:42AM +, Gian Uberto Lauri wrote:

[...]

> LOL. Maybe some gongorzola with mascarpone could be more pratical?

:-)

-- t


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Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

>writes:

> On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 07:51:53AM +0100, deloptes wrote: [...]

>> Anyway emacs is not bad for those who know it, but it is
>> impractical because you have mostly vim installed, so learning vim
>> is a must indeed.

> Eating roquefort is impractical because you gotta drink wine anyway
> :-)

LOL. Maybe some gongorzola with mascarpone could be more pratical?

> Look -- you can do both (I do). If you're looking for excuses to
> stay away from Emacs: no need to, just do.

Perfect. It is free software, rule 0, you are free to use it "for
whatever purpose you want" and this freedom includes not using it.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[tomas]

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 08:21:41PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> >> I use vim.
> > I use crispr!
> 
> I was tempted to try it out, but I heard it only handles
> a 4-char alphabet.  How do you handle accents?

They just went Unicode ;-)

Cheers

[1] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6429/884.full
-- t


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Re: text editors

[tomas]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 07:51:53AM +0100, deloptes wrote:

[...]

> Anyway emacs is not bad for those who know it, but it is impractical because
> you have mostly vim installed, so learning vim is a must indeed.

Eating roquefort is impractical because you gotta drink wine anyway :-)

Look -- you can do both (I do). If you're looking for excuses to stay
away from Emacs: no need to, just do. But as little need to spread FUD
about Emacs. Yes, Emacs is a decent editor. No, you don't /have/ to
know Lisp to use it. Yes, if you do learn Lisp, you get powers few
other editors give you. Yes, Emacs is somewhat idiosincratic (as Vi(m)
is -- most powerful editors seem to be).

Cheers
-- t


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Re: text editors

[deloptes]

John Hasler wrote:

> Not true.

really, I did not know that you could be me and you knew my experience.
Anyway emacs is not bad for those who know it, but it is impractical because
you have mostly vim installed, so learning vim is a must indeed.

If you use debian I recommend learning ne - a great editor unfortunately not
installed by default.

regards

Re: text editors

[Teemu Likonen]

Gian Uberto Lauri [2019-03-27 11:10:39Z] wrote:

> Nevertheless, if a remote box has ssh, finding (C-x C-f) the 
>
> /scp:user@machine:/path/to/the/file
>
> loads the /pat/to/the/file file downloading it from machine. And of
> course you can save it.

Emacs can even do multi hops, editing a remote file in one machine but
the connection is through some other machine(s). An example starting
from shell's command line:

$ emacs /ssh:user@middle-machine\|ssh:user@target-machine:file


-- 
/// Teemu Likonen   - .-..    //
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Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "DP" == Dan Purgert  writes:

DP> John Hasler wrote:
>> mick crane wrote:
>>> there it is then, although I've so far managed to avoid Emacs
>>> since heard it is more of an operating system than an editor.
>> 
>> Teemu Likonen writes:
>>> There are those who know Emacs, and there are those who know
>>> decades old jokes about Emacs.
>> 
>> And there are those who avoid learning what Emacs is actually like
>> because they have heard decades old jokes about it.

DP> I tried a couple of times.  But the vi-only boxes at work kinda
DP> forced me to get familiar with that.  Maybe I'll try again in the
DP> future.

vi is always useful for two purposes:

- you need a fast starting editor for a slight change

- you need to do penance

Nevertheless, if a remote box has ssh, finding (C-x C-f) the 

/scp:user@machine:/path/to/the/file

loads the /pat/to/the/file file downloading it from machine. And of
course you can save it.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: text editors

[John Hasler]

deloptes writes:
> learning emacs means learning lisp

Not true.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: text editors

[deloptes]

to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> That would be a fatal mistake, indeed. But there's another hurdle,
> which is not to be subestimated. Emacs, as an old program, comes
> along with an old culture, with its own lispeltongue (i.e. "point"
> instead of "cursor", "window" for "sub-frame", etc.). It takes a
> while to understand that it's totally worh it to embrace this mysterious
> language/culture.

exactly - learning emacs means learning lisp - what for? I switched years
ago to ne.

Re: text editors

[John Hasler]

Stefan writes:
> I was tempted to try it out, but I heard it only handles a 4-char
> alphabet.  How do you handle accents?


Phosphorylation, acetylation, and glycosylation.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: text editors

[Stefan Monnier]

>> I use vim.
> I use crispr!

I was tempted to try it out, but I heard it only handles
a 4-char alphabet.  How do you handle accents?


Stefan

Re: text editors

[Stefan Monnier]

> And, for people coming from Windows, EMACS (at least before a WYSIWYG / mouse 
> version (which I think exists now

Not sure what you mean by "now", but assuming you mean a time after
1994, then yes it exists "now".


Stefan

Re: text editors

[Teemu Likonen]

rhkra...@gmail.com [2019-03-27 08:05:30-04] wrote:

> EMACS (at least before a WYSIWYG / mouse version (which I think exists
> now -- was tHat XEMACS for a while and then maybe merged back into
> EMACS)

There is GNU Emacs and there is (or was) a GNU Emacs fork named XEmacs.
Nowadays XEmacs is dead or nearly dead: no releases in ten years. XEmacs
code has never been merged to GNU Emacs. There was a time in the history
when it made sense to use XEmacs (some useful features that GNU Emacs
hadn't) but this has not been the case for long time and GNU Emacs has
gained much more.

Just "Emacs" tends to mean either GNU Emacs or this family of editors
which "ideologically" originated from TECO editor's macro collection
named Editor Macros (EMACS).

History lesson: https://everything.explained.today/Emacs/

-- 
/// Teemu Likonen   - .-..    //
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Re: text editors

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

> "r" == rhkramer   writes:

r> XEMACS for a while and then maybe merged back into EMACS) and

I think it is an independent developing of similar features.

-- 
 /\   ___Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_   African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamicomeaning "I can
\/ coltivatore diretto di software   not install
 già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO