On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 12:47:31PM EDT, Harry Rickards wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Chris Jones wrote: > > On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 07:30:25AM EDT, Harry Rickards wrote:
> ... > >> Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what > >> can emacs do that a separate tool can't do? Surely if emacs is more > >> than an editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy: > >> Write programs that *do one thing and do it well*. Write programs > >> to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because > >> that is a universal interface > > Maybe one problem with that is that where there is some degree of > > consistency across the board as long as you stick with line-mode > > tools from the shell prompt, screen-mode programs are a different > > story. > > > > I find switching between vim.. mutt.. slrn.. Elinks.. mc ... rather > > frustrating because they are all so different in terms of "look and > > feel". > > Since emacs & extensions appear to do everything I have currently > > set up on my desktop including mail & web browsing and should > > therefore provide one consistent interface that covers my needs > > out of the box, I am beginning to think that if I can find some > > config file or other that provides ergonomically sound keyboard > > mappings, I should give it another shot. > Fair point. I suppose if you care about the different "look and feel"s > of your day to day tools, that might be an issue. However, I'm used to > using different styles for each different application I use from my M$ > days. For example, Internet Explorer 8 and Outlook 2007 don't really > have any design similarities, despite being the latest versions. :-) But I'm really talking low-level stuff like keyboard usability - one of the very few things I rather like in Windows is that most everything can be done without reaching for the mouse and that there is a standard way of accessing a particular text-entry widget via an Alt+"underlined letter". This may sound minor, but when you do that sort of thing hundreds of times a day, it adds up. Surely this is possible in both IE8 and Outlook 2007..? > For your reason alone, I am now giving Emacs a try again. Well, this time at least, I didn't post for nothing. :-) Thanks, CJ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
