[PLUG] Emacs

[Karl M. Hegbloom]

On Wed, 2002-05-15 at 15:33, Jeme A Brelin wrote:

> I'm about to take a kind of plunge.

Come on in, the water's fine!

> In an effort to avoid actually practicing becoming a better programmer,
> I'm going to attempt to build, configure, and leanr to use emacs under the
> guise that it will make programming easier when and if I ever work harder
> to actually improve my skills.  (I'm also kind of looking forward to using
> a truly GPL mail reader that does everything I want it to do, but that's a
> maybe right now.)

Learning emacs is part of improving your programming skills.  It will
make you a better and more productive programmer.  Learn to use "etags"
("make TAGS") to find your way around in code, to use "pcl-cvs" ("M-x
cvs-examine") and "ediff", and you'll be a lot farther along than most
of those obstinate fools who still insist on using "vi" in xterms for
everything.

> So, I'm just putting out feelers to find out if there is anything I need
> to know before building emacs from source.  Is there some option that
> needs to be compiled in to allow me to use particular modules, extensions,
> or scripts?  Roughly how big is an emacs installation?  Should I create a
> special /usr/local/emacs to hold all the emacs-specific stuff?  How many
> of the add-ons need to be rebuilt when emacs is rebuilt?

Ah, feelers are beginning to appear.  The metamorphosis has begun!

As always, my advice is to "apt-get source emacs21", and see what they
did.

> My intent is to build GNU Emacs.  I am, of course, generally more
> concerned with the social, legal, and political aspects of the software
> than the technical merits, but I will consider particular comparisons and
> contrasts to other Emacs streams to help inform my decision.

:-)  The "social, legal and political" aspects are not what define the
real differences between GNU Emacs and XEmacs.  It's the differences in
how they are implemented that matter, to those who care to read the
code.

I like them both.  Lately, I've been using GNU Emacs 21.  It's a little
faster, the font-locking works better than XEmacs, etags works better,
and it starts up a little quicker.  What I miss the most about XEmacs is
the minibuffer behaviour.

> Anyway, this is an open call.  What can y'all tell me that'll help my
> transition?
> 
> I've got a book (O'Reilly's Learning GNU Emacs -- the gnu book).  I don't
> really have money for another.  I can look at the FSF's manual online, of
> course.

There's an nice Emacs Lisp tutorial that's worth getting and reading. 
It's really a very good language.

> But building the thing is another story.  So, if you've got something to
> say, I'd like to hear it.

apt-get source emacs21
apt-get source emacsen-common

-- 
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the nerves of the body are corroborated thereby. --I. Watts.
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