Could Emacs be rewritten in Python?

[Skip Montanaro]

    aahz> Bare emacs is unusable.

I'm not sure what you're referring to.  No Emacs installation I'm aware of
is "bare".  (I presume you're not referring to the predump "temacs"
executable.)  I find "bare" vi pretty darn inscrutable as well.  I know how
to 'dd', 'x', 'i', 'a' and ':wq[!]', and can navigate with the arrow keys.
Just enough to tweak the occasional config file.  Anything more substantial
requires Emacs in some fashion (even if it's just X11 copy/paste from an
Emacs buffer running on another machine).  It all boils down to what you're
productive with.  I began using Emacs more than 20 years ago, so at this
point any editor in which typing 7-bit ASCII doesn't result in those
characters winding up in the file I'm editing seems weird.

I can actually understand the vi/emacs standoff.  They represent two
similarly powerful ways of editing files.  What bugs the hell out of me is
watching someone stubbornly refuse to switch from /bin/sh.  They type long
shell commands with no command/file completion or command recall of any
kind, even if bash or tcsh is installed and available.  You get stuck
standing there watching them type and make mistakes, then have to type the
whole damn thing over again with corrections.  Makes you want to scream,
"Just move over and let me drive you fool!  I have better things to do with
my time!"

Skip