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Emacs Hits Version 23

djcb writes "After only 2 years since the previous version, now emacs 23 (.1) is available. It brings many new features, of which the support for anti-aliased fonts on X may be the most visible. Also, there is support for starting emacs in the background, so you can pop up new emacs windows in the blink of an eye. There are many other bigger and smaller improvements, including support for D-Bus, Xembed, and viewing PDFs inside emacs. And not to forget, M-x butterfly. You can get emacs 23 from ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/ or one of its mirrors; alternatively, there are binary packages available, for example from Ubuntu PPA."

30 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. Eight megs and constantly swapping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Shit, these days VIM requires no less than 30 megs....

    1. Re:Eight megs and constantly swapping by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 4, Funny

      at least in VIM, random typing can accidentally put you in a useful mode.
      Emacs starts in some sort of.... okay, I typed "useless scratchpad thing" here, then went to see if anything had changed since last I tried it. What fun! Here goes "Attempt #4 at actually using emacs"

      $ sudo apt-get install emacs22
      $ emacs

      Oh look, I'm in a GUI this time. Hm, I expected to get a useless scratchpad thing, but it looks like instead I'm in some sort of crudely-made slapped together temporary menu that they'll replace with something more sensible in the final version.

      Oh well, there's a standard "new file" button in the corner, I'll click that.

      Alright, now the bottom of the window says "Find file: ~/"... okay, I guess that wasn't it, I'll try through the menu instead.
      File... "Visit new file"? Are you serious? Okay, fine, they're hippies, whatever.. I'll just click it.
      oh, "find file" again.. I don't want to find a file, I want a new file.

      Yeah, I get it, I'll stop playing dumb now. It's using 1970s technology or something so it needs a filename before it can edit anything. "emacs foo" opens as expected, lets me type normally and clicking the save button saves.

      Now how do I use the console?
      man emacs /console
      nope.. /terminal
      nope..

      I'll force it:
      DISPLAY= emacs

      press C-h for help.. and C-h actually works this time! Though only once.. better than last time though. May actually be usable, I'll give it credit.

      Emacs works better than it did last time I tried it. Still looks like crap, but it seems to be working, for the most part.

      --
      -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
    2. Re:Eight megs and constantly swapping by mugurel · · Score: 2, Funny

      at least in VIM, random typing can accidentally put you in a useful mode.

      You emphasized accidentally, not useful, right?

      In Emacs, just keep Control or Alt pressed (or both) during your random typing. It'll do anything from skipping to the next song, to making telnet connections to arbitrary places in the world. And that includes exporting your calendar and rebooting your computer.

  2. But... by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does it run Linux?

    1. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Emacs would be the perfect operating system, if only it included a decent text editor.

    2. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      lol o wow thansk i haven thead tha tone befor>e

    3. Re:But... by C0vardeAn0nim0 · · Score: 3, Funny

      it does. you can run Vim inside EMACS, you know ?

      --
      What ? Me, worry ?
    4. Re:But... by DrData99 · · Score: 2, Funny

      More importantly, will it blend?

    5. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I don't think they make blenders that Emacs could fit in.

  3. Re:Missed the best feature! by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 3, Funny

    The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

    I never thought I'd see the day that a text editor needed a network-aware client-server architecture.

  4. Terrorist post. by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Funny

    A lone geek runs into the middle of the forum, screaming "vi forever! Praise the hex codes!" *boom* :)

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  5. Remember this one? by AdmiralXyz · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slightly shortened to accommodate the special event:

    I asked my email-pal: "UNIX or Windoze?". He replied "UNIX". I said "Ah...me too!".

    I asked my email-pal: "Linux or AIX?". He said "Linux, of course". I said "Me too".

    I asked him: "Emacs or vi". He replied "Emacs". I said "Me too. Small world."

    I asked him: "GNU Emacs or XEmacs?", and he said "GNU Emacs". I said "oh, me too."

    I asked him, "GNU Emacs 22 or GNU Emacs 23?", and he replied "GNU Emacs 22". I said "DIE YOU OBSOLETE NO-GOOD SOCIALLY MALADJUSTED CELIBATE COMMIE FASCIST DORK!", and never emailed him again.

    --
    Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
  6. Re:Decent text editor still not included right? by itsdapead · · Score: 5, Funny

    emacs is what happens when a project goes too far beyond its intended purpose.

    Why do you feel that emacs is what happens when a project goes too far beyond its intended purpose?

    --
    In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
  7. Re:Obligatory XKCD by Andor666 · · Score: 2, Funny
  8. Re:Missed the best feature! by Brett+Buck · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't know why someone modded this "Funny"! Well, actually, I do - because there's no tag for "Scary"

          Brett

  9. I seriously doubt Alan Cox is going to upgrade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I seriously doubt Alan Cox is going to upgrade

  10. One question by feldicus · · Score: 3, Funny

    Does the feature list include "Shortcuts that make sense to humans who never used the 30-year old keyboards that were around when RMS was hacking on TEX"?

    Until I stop seeing Emacs primers that start with advice to start remapping my keyboard, I'll pass.

  11. Re:Now finish HURD please by CannonballHead · · Score: 3, Funny

    Apple should take over dev of it. We could all be using iHurd

  12. Re:Still useful after all these years... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh I totally agree. For example, just today I was writing a program that needs to load in around 1000 sequentially-numbered images. Like any decent coder, I had typed all of the filenames into my main program loop. But then my manager called me up to let me know that the base filename of the images had changed! You can just imagine the sinking feeling I had in my stomach, knowing that I would need to retype every single filename! It would have taken me hours, if not for the macro recording functionality in Emacs. Thanks, Emacs.

    It doesn't stop there, of course. I needed a function to count how many images had been loaded in, and save that number as a string. Then my boss phones me to say that they don't want image #0003 any more. Think of all the 'if/then' statements I'd have been forced to rewrite by hand, if it wasn't for Emacs!

  13. Emacs? Bah! by bmo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Emacs is merely a TECO macro.

    Given enough random characters and memory space, TECO can simulate the human brain.

    --
    BMO

  14. Re:Congrats! by speculatrix · · Score: 2, Funny

    the scars won't heal till you stop!

  15. Re:Missed the best feature! by elasticlogic · · Score: 4, Funny

    Awesome. The post above parent says

    now all it needs is a feature that allows me to surf _pr0n_ from within emacs, and then i'd consider using it

    and then I read

    This is also called 'multitty'.

    I was 10 Mb into the Ubuntu iso download before I read the whole post and realized what he was talking about.

  16. Re:Missed the best feature! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Text editing, text processing, and generally manipulating anything involving language---especially natural language---is the most complicated thing that's ever done on a computer.

    Yup, you're an Emacs user alright.

  17. Yo dawg! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I herd u liek Emacs. So I put an Emacs in yr Emacs so u can edit while u Tetris.

  18. Re:Missed the best feature! by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 5, Funny

    No kidding. When I started using Linux, I used emacs because it was the more user-friendly editor that was mentioned in the manual (the other being vi). Then, for years, I used vi because it is ubiquitous and usually fast.

    But now I'm back to emacs. What convinced me was M-x tetris. I figured if it could do _that_, it was powerful enough for my current and future editing needs. And it is. The secret is that the people who say that Emacs is more an operating system than a text editor are right. It's a Lisp environment where anything and everything can me modified while the system is running. It has a file manager, a client for your version control system, a web browser, a tetris game, a psychoanalyst, and countless other things.

    Oh, yes, I almost forgot. There is a text editor, too.

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  19. Re:Decent text editor still not included right? by CronoCloud · · Score: 3, Funny

    Because it includes an "Eliza style bot" that acts like a Rogerian therapist, that's why.

  20. Re:Decent text editor still not included right? by itsdapead · · Score: 2, Funny

    Tell me more about an "Eliza style bot" that acts like a Rogerian therapist, that's why.

    --
    In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
  21. Re:Decent text editor still not included right? by ubersoldat2k7 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Imagine where Hurd would be now if all the effort behind EMACS was put on it.

  22. Amazing by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Funny

    I never realized in the ageless war between Emacs and VI, that we even had high level defectors... :-)

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  23. ViM needs fewer versions by ClubStew · · Score: 2, Funny

    ViM only needs 7 versions to get it right. Emacs is at 23?