Could Emacs be rewritten in Python?

[Patrick K. O'Brien]

Ian Bicking <ianb at colorstudy.com> writes:

> On Sun, 2003-04-06 at 15:28, Patrick K. O'Brien wrote:
> > Actually, we don't have to clone everything about the interface.  I'm
> > using wxPython, so the interface is pretty and more easily configured.
> > But some people actually like the minibuffer, so we'll need to support
> > something like it and something less ugly.  Heck, I'm actually running
> > three different versions of the interface now, and I only wrote the
> > code this week (minus the almost two year's worth of code in PyCrust).
> 
> No, don't change the interface!  It's one of the best parts about
> Emacs... it doesn't use all the stupid crap that most GUIs put in.  The
> minibuffer is vastly superior to popup dialogs.  The keyboard focus is
> simple and actually works, unlike most GUIs.  M-x actually works, where
> menus for that many commands wouldn't work well at all.

I agree.  Plus dired, plus the cvs integration.  No need for a mouse
at all.  My main point was that it should be easy for us to experiment
with variations, or allow the user to change the interface, since
we're using a real GUI toolkit.  For example, some users might like
the minibuffer to be at the top of the frame, rather than the bottom.
Maybe there's a way to configure that in Emacs, but I've never tried
or seen mention of that one.  And some users will rather have a dialog
box and click on things with a mouse.  But my goal is to make it as
close to Emacs in terms of keyboard friendliness.

> I came to appreciate Emacs more when I looked at THE
> http://humane.sf.net/the/ -- an editor made by Jef Raskin, former Mac
> interface designer.  The interface he describes, without realizing it,
> is Emacs, and THE is just a poor implementation of Emacs.  I point out
> the similarities in:
> https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=796533&forum_id=193382

Interesting read, thanks for the link.

> Now, I'm not saying Emacs couldn't be improved.  But it's a far, far
> better starting point that "modern" text editors.  I'm thoroughly
> convinced that modality is the superior interface for most situations,
> and I think GUIs are leaning more in that direction as time goes on.  I
> think this is why vi remains popular -- even though I personally don't
> like it -- because it's modal.  At least anything that's keyboard
> friendly should be modal, and a text editor that isn't keyboard friendly
> is clearly stupid.

I like Emacs plenty, and use it (and Gnus) for just about everything:
text, email, newsgroups, and IRC.  That's why I want to use it as a
model.

> But I'd still like a Python Emacs to make experimentation with UI
> possible.  It would also be neat if it could be an environment for
> application development, like Emacs is, like THE wants to be... Oberon
> was like this too, and while I didn't like many parts of Oberon, the
> overall environment was really neat.  Squeak keeps trying to move this
> way too.  I'd love to see an environment where there was less boundary
> between module, one-off program, and end-user application.  But ignore
> such high ideas, because they will distract and overwhelm :)  The editor
> is a great starting point for any number of things, but if you get to
> thinking about all those things it'll keep you from starting the
> foundation ;)

Okay, thanks.  Back to the grindstone...

-- 
Patrick K. O'Brien
Orbtech      http://www.orbtech.com/web/pobrien
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