The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding

[Martin Gregorie]

Twisted wrote:
> The manuals came with the computers, at no additional charge. It was a
> different time. This isn't going to be true of any separately-
> purchased book or user-made printout concerning emacs. Also, the
> manuals provided a basic introduction for the beginning user. A
> traditional-unix-tool providing anything resembling that would
> genuinely shock me.
>
Oh, so manuals are OK and you'll read them if they are dead trees that 
came in the same box as the software, but not if they're HOWTOs, online 
documentation or O'Reilly books?

> I distinctly remember Winword circa 2002 not being able to
> retroactively change all of a bunch of like-formatted paragraphs
> easily. Not without delving into VBscript or something, anyway.
> 
So you didn't read the free but thick and stodgy Word manual? Styles and 
  style sheets have been in Word since Word for DOS 5. Changing a style 
sheet has always affected all documents that reference it.

> 
> Oh, because the implementation (of "reveal codes" and of everything
> else) was awful, not because of any intrinsic flaw in the idea itself.
>
If a word processor, which by definition is provides a WYSIWYG user 
interface, can't produce perfectly formatted text by editing a 
representation of the finished result then its a deeply flawed program 
and not fit for purpose.

By providing 'Reveal codes' and by being designed in such a way as to 
force its regular use, Wordperfect reveals itself as being no better 
than nrof or tex - its like expecting a user to write postscript source 
with a text editor and providing a separate window with a Postscript 
viewer to see what the final result will look like.

> Would you want to edit a Web page without being able to hand-hack the
> HTML?
 >
Of course not, but HTML isn't anything to do with WYSIWYG and any system 
(Coldfusion, Front Page, HTML from Word) that pretends it is WYSIWG is 
both useless and perpetrating a fraud.

> What happened to the guys that did all this stuff after it became
> obsolete?
 >
It isn't obsolete despite going back a looong way. The hardware and 
software was originally developed as Future Series (intended S/360 
replacement), was canned in 1970 but resurfaced in the late 80s as 
System/38. A second generation appeared as AS/400, was renamed to (I 
think) Z-series and are now known as iSeries servers. Its good, reliable 
kit and easy to work with if you don't mind programming in RPG.

I know of no better "one size fits all" interface design than that 
provided by the OS/400 operating system. Its still called that. Its a 
pity the interface style hasn't been emulated by others.

> It would be nice if straightforward macro recording was standard in Windows
> though.
> 
It was standard with Win 3.1 and 3.11 and it was bloody useless. Most 
people I know tried it once or twice before giving up and writing .BAT 
files or putting up with RSI. The problem was that it recorded 
keystrokes and mouse clicks. Even minor changes to the screen layout 
made it fail and the macros couldn't be edited or parameterised nor made 
to prompt for filenames, etc.

You can do better with Gnome, thanks to tcl, but I think most people go 
straight to Ruby or stick to plain vanilla shell scripts.


-- 
martin@   | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org       |