Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!bbn!ginosko!ctrsol!srcsip!orion!rogers
From: rogers@orion.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Brynn Rogers)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Programmer's editor wanted
Message-ID: <27714@srcsip.UUCP>
Date: 12 Aug 89 09:20:20 GMT
References: 
Sender: news@src.honeywell.COM
Reply-To: rogers@src.honeywell.com (Brynn Rogers)
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center
Lines: 75

In article 
    t36273c@saha.hut.fi (Ari Huttunen) writes:
>Hi! I'm looking for a programmer's editor with the following qualities. I
>know of several that meet *some* of these but haven't yet met any that meets
>them all.

1|o Extensible user interface via a program language. (With a ready-to-use
 |  emacs style command set.)
2|o Multiple over-lapping windows.
3|o Mouse support. (If you have used Logitech's Point then you know what I
 |   mean by this..)
4|o re-configurable menus.
5|+ Can edit (simultaneously) 10-30 files with a total length much greater
 |  than the available memory.
6|+ Can run a make-utility without leaving editing. Preferrably swaps itself
 |  to disk for the duration of the make. AND if it captured the output..

|o=required
|+=would like..
|(__________ahuttune@hupu.hut.fi________

I have looked and looked for the same thing, and these are my conclusions:

Epsilon meets 1,2,5,6.  I assume that 4 is for mouse support
        
MicroEmacs ver 3.1? meets 1,2,3,4.  You can do 6, but it is useless for make
   because it doesn't swap itself out to disk.

JOVE ver 3.9 ?? meets 1,2.

FREEMACS  meets 1,2, and maybe 5

Goslings EMACs  meets 1,2. 25x80 ONLY


  I have settled on using Epsilon because [5,6] are more important to me
then the mouse.  It is perfectly possible to write your own mouse interface
for epsilon, but I haven't tried yet.  Meets item 6 completly, but I
generaly just push-to-dos (gets me a dos shell and swaps all but 3k of
itself to disk or EMS or XMS) do my make sending my output to a file,
then exit back to epsilon.  I Know you can run a DOS command and capture
the output, and swaps most of epsilon out.  You can also edit really huge
files (>>1 meg!) with epsilon and it doesn't complain AND it is orders of
magnitude faster than any other editor I have seen that does this.
One final feature that switched me to epsilon is the ability to tell it
how big my screen is.  I have discovered how to use the many,many text modes
a Orchid prodesigner+ can handle (25,26,28,30,33,36,40,43,46,50,54,60 x80;
36,40,42,46,50,56,62,66,75 x 100; to name a few) and epsilon just looks
at an environment varible that says my screen is 46 rows of 100 characters.
Epsilons only drawback is its price: $195 list about $160 mail order.

  Microemacs has really nice mouse support and has many nice features,
but I could not get it to do item 6, and I think it barfs when you try
to edit megabyte long files.  memacs can handle 25,43, and 50x80 screens
and is either shareware or PD (I forget)
  
  JOVE is a pretty nice version of emacs, and I used it for quite a while.
I find it really easy to customize, but I found it slow when editing
huge files (like the MSDOS interrupt list).   I have heard that you can get
it to see 43x80 and 50x80 screens, but I never got that to work.

  FREEMACS is one I can't remember much about.

  Gosling EMACS from Unipress software has not been supported for years
and is incapable of handling bigger than 25x80 screens.   The only thing
it has going for it is its extension language, which is Mock-lisp.


  GNU EMACS  meets 1,2,3,4,5,6;  but it will be many moons before you can
get it.  If you have a 386 with gobs of memory, sooner or later GNU emacs will
be running on a PC.  This will be my choice when I have a 386 and gobs
of memory, but that is a couple years away for me.
 
 Brynn Rogers    Honeywell S&RC        rogers@src.honeywell.com
 work 612-782-7577 home 874-7737