Why isn't emacs installed by default

Nicolas Mailhot nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net
Mon Jun 4 14:06:45 UTC 2007


Le Lun 4 juin 2007 14:12, Andrew Haley a écrit :
> Nicolas Mailhot writes:
>  >
>  > Le Lun 4 juin 2007 13:28, Andrew Haley a écrit :
>  >
>  > > Can you please explain what you are talking about?  By "targets
>  > > 1995-ish desktops," do you mean that emacs lacks pop-up windows,
>  > > icons, menus, and so, on?  Or something else you desire?
>  >
>  > I mean emacs does not use the current desktop font infrastructure,
>  > does not use one of the main GUI desktop toolkits, does not support
>  > cleanly i18n & our main encoding (UTF-8), does not integrate with
> the
>  > accessibility infrastructure, does not integrate with the printing
>  > infrastructure, and the list goes on and on.
>  >
>  > That means emacs:
>  > 1. is unable to provide a lot of features current desktop users
> expect
>  > (and that's not a question of eye-candy, a terrific amount of work
>  > happened on the desktop these past years)
>
> Well, yes, but on the other hand the desktop is unable to provide a
> lot of features current emacs users expect.  Why is one more important
> than the other? Why are the expectations of "current desktop users",
> whomever they may be, more relevant than those of current emacs users?

If you want to be part of the default desktop install you have to
implement the default desktop expectations & rules.
If you don't want to target the default desktop, you don't get
installed with the desktop, that's as simple as that. You may be
installed with something else (Fedora emacs spin, for example) but you
don't piggy-back on another group when you don't share its objectives
and make more work for it.

>  > 2. depends on a lot of stuff that must be kept working and
> configured
>  > properly just for it.
>
> OK, this closer to a sensible argument.  What are these things?
>
>  > Emacs may join the 21st century in the next decade. Till it does
it's
>  > squarely aimed at the museum.
>
> From a user's point of view, the important thing is the extent to
> which using the current desktop font infrastructure, using one of the
> main GUI desktop toolkits, etc. would enhance emacs.

I won't enter in this argument. A lot of code was written for other
apps and their users/maintainers seem to think it's useful for
something (and a lot of those people were emacs users till they gave
up on it)

Suffice to say if you refuse to use the same stuff as everyone else,
you get to maintain the stuff you're the only major user of. And
suddenly lagging does not seem to be the low-effort choice anymore.

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot




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