From: kagel AT quasar DOT bloomberg DOT com
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 12:48:21 -0400
Message-Id: <9609191648.AA10040@quasar.bloomberg.com >
To: farhany AT interlog DOT com
Cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19960919143021.006f6fe4@mail.interlog.com> (message from Farhan Yousaf on Thu, 19 Sep 1996 10:30:21 -0400)
Subject: Re: Terms?
Reply-To: kagel AT dg1 DOT bloomberg DOT com

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   Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 10:30:21 -0400
   From: Farhan Yousaf <farhany AT interlog DOT com>
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   Being a relative newcomer to Unix and DJGPP, may I ask what the following
   terms mean?

    - POSIX

POSIX is an international standard for Open System operating systems.  It 
specifies standards for OS services, system calls, etc.

    - Emacs

From the GNU Emacs Info manual:

       ... GNU Emacs, the GNU incarnation of the advanced,
self-documenting, customizable, extensible real-time display editor
Emacs. 

   We say that Emacs is a "display" editor because normally the text
being edited is visible on the screen and is updated automatically as
you type your commands.

   We call it a "real-time" editor because the display is updated very
frequently, usually after each character or pair of characters you
type. [SNIP]

   We call Emacs advanced because it provides facilities that go beyond
simple insertion and deletion: controlling subprocesses; automatic
indentation of programs; viewing two or more files at once; editing
formatted text; and dealing in terms of characters, words, lines,
sentences, paragraphs, and pages, as well as expressions and comments in
several different programming languages.

   "Self-documenting" means that at any time you can type a special
character, `Control-h', to find out what your options are.  You can
also use it to find out what any command does, or to find all the
commands that pertain to a topic.

   "Customizable" means that you can change the definitions of Emacs
commands in little ways.  [SNIP]

   "Extensible" means that you can go beyond simple customization and
write entirely new commands, programs in the Lisp language to be run by
Emacs's own Lisp interpreter.  Emacs is an "on-line extensible" system,
which means that it is divided into many functions that call each
other, any of which can be redefined in the middle of an editing
session. [SNIP]

-- 
Art S. Kagel, kagel AT quasar DOT bloomberg DOT com

A proverb is no proverb to you 'till life has illustrated it.  -- John Keats