7 ms·
I'm curious: who invented gap buffers originally? Do we know if it was RMS? What was the first peer-reviewed publication describing or mentioning them? A quick
by jll29 3y ago
I'm curious: who invented gap buffers originally? Do we know if it was RMS? What was the first peer-reviewed publication describing or mentioning them?
A quick search brings up only references in the 1990s or later...
- gumby 3y agoEmacs uses a gap buffer because TECO used one, long before RMS finished high school. Emacs was initially just a bunch of macros (in Eugene Ciccarelli's TECO init file IIRC) that provided an easier interface to TECO once a realtime display mode (^R mode of course!) had been added. Yes, in TECO, control R was a keyword in the language. If you don't know TECO it looks like line noise. For controlling an editor, that's not necessarily insane.
- cbsmith 3y agoYeah, gap buffers LONG predate RMS.
- jwstarr 3y agoThe author of TECO, Dan Murphy, wrote an article about its history for the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. A PDF copy of the article is available here: https://opost.com/tenex/anhc-31-4-anec.pdf https://opost.com/tenex/anhc-31-4-anec.pdf Alas, it does not discuss the gap buffer. The book The Craft of Text Editing claims the gap buffer technique was first used by TECO (http://www.finseth.com/craft/#c6.6 http://www.finseth.com/craft/#c6.6), although this claim is given no support.
- gumby 3y agoThanks for that reference — I’d never seen it. I’ll be happy never to write any more TECO in my life, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested.