From: "Art S. Kagel" Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: EMACS Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 07:59:58 -0400 Lines: 38 Message-ID: References: <01bc9b83$5b2e18e0$6a3d31cf AT default> NNTP-Posting-Host: 160.43.8.60 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In-Reply-To: <01bc9b83$5b2e18e0$6a3d31cf@default> To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Precedence: bulk On 28 Jul 1997, Majisun wrote: > What is EMACS? An IDE? The Emacs manual calls Emacs "the Extensible, Customizable, Self-Documenting Display Editor". But it is more. It is a text editor, a word processor, yes an IDE, the ultimate programmers's editor, news reader, mail reader, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It is extensible because all of its commands are written in ELISP, Emacs' version of the LISP programming language, and anyone can write new commands. It is customizable because most commands accept configuration variables which modify their behavior and anyway the ELISP source is always available to be customized for you special needs (for example someone wrote an ELISP module to better interface with screen reader software for the blind). It is self-documenting because when you do add new commands, or rebind the keystrokes which execute a command, Emacs generates help documentation on the fly for this new behavior. Emacs even tells you the keystrokes needed to shortcut a command that you have entered manually so you can learn for next time. Emacs is multi-windowed and can let you view and edit multiple files simultaneously. Contains mouse support. It is large and powerful and can let you do anything you need to do. You can execute you compiler from within Emacs and it will trap error messages and move you to the corresponding source lines. On some platforms (sadly not DOS) Emacs can execute your debugger in a window. The Table of Contents in the printed manual is fifteen pages long! Some say that Emaccs is hard to learn. I differ. You can learn to use it by investing an hour in the built in tutorial. You will, however, spend the rest of your life learning to take advantage of all of the power that it gives you and discovering new and better ways to do what you were alreading doing the hard way yesterday. You will quickly begin customizing and programming new commands. I hope that this gives you a good overview. Art S. Kagel, kagel AT bloomberg DOT com