Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!ames!rutgers!labrea!russell!rustcat
From: rustcat@russell.STANFORD.EDU (Vallury Prabhakar)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Lisp and editing
Keywords: Lisp, editors, systems, other languages, flame-less
Message-ID: <1168@russell.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 16 Dec 87 03:41:12 GMT
Reply-To: rustcat@russell.stanford.edu (Vallury Prabhakar)
Organization: Yonder, the Apocalyptic Horizons
Lines: 46

Not that I can claim to be a Lisp whiz, but the present discussion has
made me curious.  

The impression I've gotten so far, is that in order to program efficiently
in CL, one would need an editor that is custom-made for the language.  
Smart pretty-printing, indentations, comments et all need to handled
efficiently by the editor.  In other words, people seem to feel that
these utilities need to be "hard-wired" into the editor/system.  

I can see how that would be a neat thing to do for Lisp machines like
the Explorers.  (I personally do find that Explorers and especially the
editor to be quite fascinating).  Since the sole environment that those
machines work in is Lisp itself, total compatibility between the editor
and the OS is desirable.

However, I find it strange that people should be knocking editors like
GNU/Gosling Emacs.  Surely, these are not editors that were conceived
keeping Lisp in mind?  At least, not primarily.  The whole point of 
these editors is their universality and flexibility.  Under those 
circumstances, isn't a bit unreasonable to expect the editor to be
able to figure out all sorts of nifty things for Lisp at the touch of
a key, and at the same time be able to handle other modes such as
electric-c-mode, etc?  The best part about Emacs is that they are
so very open.  Customizing the framework of these editors to suit the
individual programmer's taste (whether it's Lisp or C or whatever)
is eminently possible, and certainly less of a "hard-wiring" requirement
kludge.  

Speaking from personal experience, I've done most of my Lisp on a Sun
using Gnu Emacs, and I'm very satisfied.  Open up another window with
the lisp interpreter running in it, and set up your file to work in
Lisp mode, and that's all I've needed. Granted that the ZMACS editor
on the Explorers can probably do a better job with all sorts of nifty
little Lisp options, but can it switch into C/Tex mode when I want it to?
Afraid not.

Disclaimer:  The above are my opinions only.  You hear me??  MINE!
             So spare me any flames.  

							-- Vallury
--
> (get life)
>>Error: LIFE has no global value

:C    Try evaluating LIFE again
->