4 ms·

Another subtle but important use of emacs : it is a good playground for (a flavor of) Lisp. Together with the source code galore in site-lisp/, it is a really g

by sn41 8y ago

Another subtle but important use of emacs : it is a good playground for (a flavor of) Lisp. Together with the source code galore in site-lisp/, it is a really good environment to learn how a full-blown system can be put together in Lisp. [Hooks, macros, advice - all the goodies to shoot yourself in the foot in that wonderful Lisp way!] Also relevant is the great article by Stallman on the exact C-vs-Lisp division of labor in emacs. This design philosophy of "bare metal" programming in a fast language + an interpreter for flexibility is also the philosophy behind GNU guile: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/ https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/

loosetypes 8y ago
Thanks for the first article. “Multics Emacs proved to be a great success — programming new editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his office started learning how to use it.” This reminds me of a story I heard that early on at Amazon supposedly the company used applications built onto Emacs instead of building in-house web applications for internal use. I had a chance to talk with an early employee but unfortunately forgot to ask about it.
- NateEag 8y ago
  You are likely thinking of this Steve Yegge essay: https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel Search for "Then you know Mailman", and you'll find the bit I'm thinking of. It doesn't say they built multiple systems around Emacs, but it does say Mailman was built in Emacs Lisp, and that they had people writing Emacs extensions to further Mailman's functionality. (And that their non-technical customer service folks loved Mailman.) Edit: found more-canonical URL.
Torwald 8y ago
> [Hooks, macros, advice - all the goodies to shoot yourself in the foot in that wonderful Lisp way!] You use a very common technique to make the joke, a "turn" so to speak. This makes the joke recursive because it involves Lisp. It's fitting, I just had to laugh!

by sn41 8y ago

loosetypes 8y ago

Thanks for the first article. “Multics Emacs proved to be a great success — programming new editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his office started learning how to use it.” This reminds me of a story I heard that early on at Amazon supposedly the company used applications built onto Emacs instead of building in-house web applications for internal use. I had a chance to talk with an early employee but unfortunately forgot to ask about it.

NateEag 8y ago
You are likely thinking of this Steve Yegge essay: https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel Search for "Then you know Mailman", and you'll find the bit I'm thinking of. It doesn't say they built multiple systems around Emacs, but it does say Mailman was built in Emacs Lisp, and that they had people writing Emacs extensions to further Mailman's functionality. (And that their non-technical customer service folks loved Mailman.) Edit: found more-canonical URL.

Torwald 8y ago

> [Hooks, macros, advice - all the goodies to shoot yourself in the foot in that wonderful Lisp way!] You use a very common technique to make the joke, a "turn" so to speak. This makes the joke recursive because it involves Lisp. It's fitting, I just had to laugh!