I've coming to a decision point now that involves Emacs. If I decide to
dedicate myself to Emacs, I would certainly like a well supported, newer (20.x)
release on OpenVMS, but I'm not sure that Emacs is what I need. I've been using
Emacs casually and I'm starting to get the hang of it, but I'm still not sure of
how far Emacs can take me.
I need a powerful editing environment that doesn't depend on a numeric keypad.
I'm a long-time TPU user who still uses "set keypad edt". I don't find the
"native" EVE keys to be as productive as the edt keypad.
My primary computing environment these days is a Windows NT laptop. I can dock
it, I can hook up a keyboard, I can do a lot of things to get around not having
the keypad, but in the end, they are a pain, they don't work well on the road
and there's just little or no point. Also, I'd like to use the same editor on
Unix/Windows and that ain't TPU/EDT.
Now, on Unix systems, I'm a long time vi user. I don't want to start a tired
Emacs vs. vi debate, really. I find that I can be very productive in vi and
it's universal (or nearly) on Unix systems, so I can sit down and get to work
immediately without setup.
I would like to have one editor that I can use on OpenVMS, Windows and Unix.
The choices here are Emacs and some vi-workalike.
The primary problems with using vi and vi-workalikes are:
Support on OpenVMS is uneven.
Poor support for multiple window/buffer support.
The primary problems with using Emacs are:
Steep learning curve.
Support on OpenVMS questionable.
Anyway, my research has given me the following options:
Emacs (and support an effort to get it more current on OpenVMS).
VILE
VILE (a VI "finger feel" workalike built on an old Microemacs) solves many of
the problems of vi, it's extensible, has good multi-window support, is
relatively small and very portable. Most interesting to those on the vmsperl
list (bringing this back on topic!) is the fact that VILE supports Perl as an
extension language on Unix and NT (nobody's done the work to integrate Perl and
VILE on OpenVMS). VILE seems well supported on OpenVMS with new releases coming
out often. One disturbing thing is that the long-standing home page for it
seems to have disappeared and it now only seems to be available via a mirror:
ftp://ftp.phred.org/pub/vile/ has various pages of interest (start at
vile.html).
So, there are two attractive projects that seem to me to be mutually exclusive.
Try and use Emacs everywhere and participate in at least testing newer releases
if they became available or use Vile everywhere and look into getting the
perl-extension interface going on OpenVMS.
Anyone have advice? What Emacs packages do you use that make Emacs a must have
(gnus, VM, calendar/diary, major modes?).
Anybody have any major gotchas with VILE that they've experienced?
Ultimately, another thing I'd like to have is a higher level environment for
editing HTML/SGML/XML based on a TEXT editor. The point being that you want a
single editing environment that supports SGML/XML so that you can more easily
try out moving legacy formats to SGML/XML. Emacs has a well-supported SGML/XML
package so this is a win for Emacs from this perspective. I imagine that I'd
have a better SGML/XML experience with Emacs if I had a 20.x release.
Jordan Henderson
Compaq Services - Contracted to DAASC
Phone: (937) 656 3804
"If you are angry with someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes... then
you'll be a mile away from them, and you'll have their shoes."
-Author unknown
<<Jordan Henderson (E-mail).vcf>>
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2000 11:20 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: Any interest in porting emacs 20.x to
OpenVMS v7.x
Hi,
I know the message is way old. Eric Johnson talked to me about
emacs as
well, in a time when I was overstressed (Eric, I'm sorry for the
little
responsiveness you got from me).
The thing that got me stumped when I was going to port emacs
19.35 (yeah,
we're talking way back) was that I wanted to retain the
configuration
script, just as I did for emacs 19.28. For 19.28, I ported
autoconf 1.x,
and believe me when I say it was absolute hell, but then again,
now I
know sh really... I thought... You see, emacs 19.35 and on
uses a newer
version of autoconf (2.x) for it's configuration script. I've
made an
attempt to port autoconf 2 and came quite a bit of the way, but
then got
into something that got that port to stop dead in it's tracks.
Showed me
that I still needed to learn about the magical part of sh...
Anyhow, life went on, and I simply didn't get the time to take
up
autoconf and concentrate on it, the rest followed by
implication.
So, why am I writing this? Well, I recently got reasons to
start mucking
around seriously with emacs again, perhaps with a slightly
different
approach. Also, I've heard some rumour that there's something
that works
very much like autoconf, except that it generates perl code
instead of
sh. Does anyone here know anything about this, or is it just an
urban
legend that has hit me and that I'd have to wait endlessly for?
About giving VMS code back into mainstream emacs, well, that has
been
attempted, a real long time ago when emacs 19 wasn't yet
publically
available (we're talking 19.0 to 19.12 or something like that).
I was
working through someone at the FSF (don't recall his name right
now), but
apparently RMS did feel it could be properly tested by the GNU
project
and decided that it wasn't worth it, or something like that (I
didn't get
all the details, just that it lead to a quite heated
discussion). This
is very sad, but I can understand RMS' reasons. His goal is to
create an
operating system with all imaginable tools in it, anything else
being of
minor interest. VMS support falls into that "minor" part, I'm
afraid.
About the lists that I was maintaining for GNU stuff on VMS,
they're
still there. See http://vms.gnu.org/mailinglists.html. They
just
haven't (as you say) been used very much lately...
And now, this is getting to the point where I wonder if this is
the right
list for this discussion.
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 12:09:26 -0800
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Eric Johnson wrote:
> Sorry for the slightly off topic request, but this is
probably my last
> best hope.
>
> We've used emacs for many years now and emacs 19.28 is
getting
> a little stale. Unfortunately, not much work has been done
lately on
> getting emacs up to date. Giving that its a small market
and there's
> little reward for doing this, I can understand that. So to
grease the
> wheels so to speak, there would be financial compenstation
> involved.
>
> I'd like to locate someone or a small group of people who
would
> have the interest and required knowledge to port emacs 20.x
to
> OpenVMS v7.x for the Alpha. To make the port a little
easier, the
> the porters could make the following assumptions if that
makes
> their life easier...
>
> * Forget about the VAX
> * Forget about anything before DEC C v6.x
> * Forget about GCC
> * Forget about anything before OpenVMS v7.x
> * Socket support would go after the standard includes
> (ie. force Multinet users to use UCX compatibility
mode)
> * Forget about old MMS versions (or require MMK if that's
better)
>
> There are a couple of must haves, so the port can't be too
dirty.
> And more importantly, I'd like to get the code folded back
into
> the mainline GNU emacs development. That way the VMS folks
> don't get left behind despite our superior architecture and
operating
> system. :->
>
> If you're interested, please contact me so we can talk
specifics.
> Feel free to forward this email to anyone who you think
might be
> interested. Also, if there are any other corporate
interests out there,
> perhaps we can do some joint sponsorships of this.
Your request sounds reasonable. The last I checked the
various GNU on VMS
mailing lists (including the emacs one that was probably the
chattiest and
longest running) looked silent. It would be very nice to
resurrect them
I'd think.
--
R Levitte, Levitte Programming; Spannv. 38, I; S-168 35
Bromma; SWEDEN
Tel: +46-8-26 52 47; Cell: +46-708-26 53 44; Fax: +46-708-26
53 88
PGP key fingerprint = 35 3E 6C 9E 8C 97 85 24 BD 9F D1 9E 8F
75 23 6B
http://richard.levitte.org/pubkey2.asc for my public key.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"price, performance, quality. Choose any two you
like"
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