Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 22:11:41 +0000 From: Mark Ovens <mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net>, James A Wilde <james.wilde@telia.com>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Programmers' editor? Message-ID: <19991125221140.D1342@marder-1> In-Reply-To: <19991125153045.40243@mojave.sitaranetworks.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.9911231240360.4557-100000@fw.wintelcom.net> <00e101bf3681$44cb04a0$8c0aa8c0@hk.tbv.se> <19991124103253.B2554@orion.ac.hmc.edu> <19991124135521.44585@mojave.sitaranetworks.com> <19991125192634.B316@marder-1> <19991125153045.40243@mojave.sitaranetworks.com>
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On Thu, Nov 25, 1999 at 03:30:45PM -0500, Greg Lehey wrote:
>
> Brave man. With "newbie", I really meant somebody who hadn't used
> either editor. I'm not trying to convert vi users.
>
Well it seems a good idea to learn emacs. I can see that it has a lot
of useful features; run compilers, debuggers, apply patches, use
version control etc. all from within the editor, and it is easier to
manipulate multiple files.
> > After the first couple of hours finding my way around (much use of
> > C-h) I got quite productive with it. The biggest difference I had to
> > adjust to was the fact that it doesn't have a command mode, any non
> > Ctrl-, Meta-, Shift-, Esc- chars you type go into the document, but
> > once I got used to that it wasn't so bad.
>
> I'd look on that as a plus.
I can imagine it is, when I get used to it :)
[snip]
>
> Yes, I don't understand that either. It's easy enough to bind, of
> course. I have this in my .emacs:
>
> (global-set-key "" 'goto-line)
>
And now so do I.
> > Indenting is a big mystery. OK, when in C-mode it will
> > auto-indent, but for non-code text it doesn't seem to work.
> > This e-mail is done in emacs and indenting this paragraph and
> > the one above I found impossible to do other than manually.
> >
> > The first line of each was started with a TAB but no way could I make
> > emacs indent the subsequent lines to match (``:se ai'' will do it
> > automatically in vi, and if you later edit it and mess it up then
> > ``!}fmt'' will clean it up). I tried selecting the paragraph and then
> > Edit->Fill, but all it did was split it into lines ~75 chars but only
> > the first line was indented! (the ``goto-line'' paragraph above).
>
> Emacs has a different approach to this issue. Each buffer has a mode
> assigned to it. When you edit C text, you automatically get the
> c-mode loaded. With text, by default, you get fundamental, which
> doesn't know much about indenting. The first thing you can do is load
> letter-mode, which will do what you want to do. It also modifies the
> way m-q (fill paragraph) works.
>
I take it that by this you mean ``M-x mh-letter-mode''? I tried it,
but just get:
Cannot find the commands 'inc' and 'mhl'
There is "Auto Fill (word wrap) in Text modes" on the Help->Options
menu, but that doesn't seem to do anything. It certainly isn't
formatting this paragraph as I type it.
>
> No, but O'Reilly does a book.
>
Is that a personal recommendation?
Mark (Who's determined to master emacs)
--
PERL has been described as "the duct tape of the Internet"
and "the Unix Swiss Army chainsaw"
- Computer Shopper 12/99
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