Aquamacs vs Carbon Emacs
David Rogoff
I'm a long-time emacs user (since 18.57 back in '88). For about 13/14
years I've been using xemacs, on Solaris, Linux, and WinXP. I've
switched at home to Mac (10.6.2) and was looking at emacs for it. The
old xemacs port seems to be dead and xemacs development in general is
glacial at best.
So, I figured I'd also try switching to the gnu version of emacs. I'm
working on the Linux and WinXP versions, but I could use advice for my
Mac. I see Aquamacs (aquamacs.org) and Carbon Emacs
(http://homepage.mac.com/zenitani/emacs-e.html). I've looked for
comparisons online, but they are all out of date. Can someone give me a
current status of how these two compare:
* integration with OSX
* keeping up to date with gnu versions
* anything else?
Thanks,
David
Joe Wangkauf
Rogoff <da...@therogoffs.com> wrote:
> I see Aquamacs (aquamacs.org) and Carbon Emacs
> (http://homepage.mac.com/zenitani/emacs-e.html).
The emacs guru I know recommended Aquamacs. It's more regularly
updated than the other Mac ports.
--
... something witty goes here ...
Barry Margolin
Joe Wangkauf <tmo...@invalid.gmail.domain.com> wrote:
> In article <4b63781f$0$30309$c37e...@unlimited.newshosting.com>, David
> Rogoff <da...@therogoffs.com> wrote:
>
> > I see Aquamacs (aquamacs.org) and Carbon Emacs
> > (http://homepage.mac.com/zenitani/emacs-e.html).
>
> The emacs guru I know recommended Aquamacs. It's more regularly
> updated than the other Mac ports.
I've been using Carbon Emacs for years, although I haven't updated it in
a while. It's quite solid.
From what I've read, if you're used to traditional Emacs, Carbon Emacs
will feel more comfortable. I've been using Emacs since 1980 (on PDP-10
and Multics in those days, GNU wasn't even a twinkle in RMS's eye yet),
and and I find Carbon Emacs quite enjoyable.
Aquamacs is apparently more customized to the OS X GUI style. I haven't
tried it, so I'm not sure precisely what that implies.
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
Harald Hanche-Olsen
> I've been using Carbon Emacs for years, although I haven't updated it in
> a while. It's quite solid.
I guess I am more adventurous, using GNU emacs direct from the current
bazaar (previously CVS) repository, configured with --with-nextstep.
It's kind of solid too. I do have random crashes, maybe once a week or so,
but these crashes have never cost me more than a few dozen keystrokes at
most, thanks to emacs's excellent autosave and recovery feature. But
living on the bleeding edge like that one has to be prepared for some
surprises.
> Aquamacs is apparently more customized to the OS X GUI style. I
> haven't tried it, so I'm not sure precisely what that implies.
I looked at it a while back. If I recall correctly, they treat the
command key as Super, so command-S, command-C and so forth are seen by
emacs as super-S, super-C and so on, which are then bound to
save-buffer, kill-ring-save, and so forth, which makes Mac users quite
at home. The downside to this is that the alt/option key now almost has
to become meta, and you lose the original use for that key, leading to a
highly impoverished keyboard (especially for us European types). Anyway,
I have "command=meta" so deeply ingrained into my fingers I'd probably
have to go to a reeducation camp to unlearn it. It's not easy to switch
back and forth between the emacs world and other mac apps, though. I
lost count of the number of times I closed a window when trying to copy
from it. (The converse, capitalizing a word in emacs when I wish to
copy, is annoying too, but much less so.)
--
* Harald Hanche-Olsen <URL:http://www.math.ntnu.no/~hanche/>
- It is undesirable to believe a proposition
when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.
-- Bertrand Russell
Jolly Roger
David Rogoff <da...@therogoffs.com> wrote:
Mac OS X, being Unix, already has GNU emacs built in. In Mac OS X 10.6,
it's GNU Emacs 22.1.1. So there's no need to download and install
anything. Try this:
1. Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.
2. Enter the command: emacs
I'm a little surprised someone with a Linux background wouldn't have
discovered this on their own!
--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.
JR
Joe Wangkauf
Jolly Roger <jolly...@pobox.com> wrote:
> Mac OS X, being Unix, already has GNU emacs built in. In Mac OS X 10.6,
> it's GNU Emacs 22.1.1. So there's no need to download and install
> anything. Try this:
>
> 1. Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.
> 2. Enter the command: emacs
>
> I'm a little surprised someone with a Linux background wouldn't have
> discovered this on their own!
Wow.. I've been using OS X since 10.4 and I never looked for that... I
did look for vi tho the first night I got my Mac.. which some would say
is even /more/ shameful.. ;-)
Jolly Roger
Joe Wangkauf <tmo...@invalid.gmail.domain.com> wrote:
I'm a long-time vi/vim veteran. It pays to know how to use vi/vim for
someone in my field.
David Rogoff
> In article <4b63781f$0$30309$c37e...@unlimited.newshosting.com>,
> David Rogoff <da...@therogoffs.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all. More switcher (in multiple ways) question:
>>
>> I'm a long-time emacs user (since 18.57 back in '88). For about 13/14
>> years I've been using xemacs, on Solaris, Linux, and WinXP. I've
>> switched at home to Mac (10.6.2) and was looking at emacs for it. The
>> old xemacs port seems to be dead and xemacs development in general is
>> glacial at best.
>>
>> So, I figured I'd also try switching to the gnu version of emacs. I'm
>> working on the Linux and WinXP versions, but I could use advice for my
>> Mac. I see Aquamacs (aquamacs.org) and Carbon Emacs
>> (http://homepage.mac.com/zenitani/emacs-e.html). I've looked for
>> comparisons online, but they are all out of date. Can someone give me a
>> current status of how these two compare:
>> * integration with OSX
>> * keeping up to date with gnu versions
>> * anything else?
>
> Mac OS X, being Unix, already has GNU emacs built in. In Mac OS X 10.6,
> it's GNU Emacs 22.1.1. So there's no need to download and install
> anything. Try this:
>
> 1. Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.
> 2. Enter the command: emacs
Thanks - just tried this. Question: it comes up in tty mode. How do I
get the normal GUI mode / multiple windows, etc?
I also found out yesterday that I don't need to install a VNC client
since OSX has one built in:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Screen Sharing.app
Works great to connect to my work WinXP box.
David
Richard Maine
> On 2010-01-29 22:03:36 -0800, Jolly Roger said:
>
> > Mac OS X, being Unix, already has GNU emacs built in. In Mac OS X 10.6,
> > it's GNU Emacs 22.1.1. So there's no need to download and install
> > anything. Try this:
> >
> > 1. Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.
> > 2. Enter the command: emacs
>
> Thanks - just tried this. Question: it comes up in tty mode. How do I
> get the normal GUI mode / multiple windows, etc?
You download and install some other version of your choice. :-)
That's what I used to do before I gradually drifted away from using
emacs. Unless things have changed a lot, the one distributed with OS X
does terminal mode only. I used to install xemacs, but I haven't gotten
around to doing so on this machine, and I probably won't bother. (I just
noticed that I still have my shell alias set to substitute xemacs when i
type emacs, even though xemacs isn't installed; suppose I should delete
that alias, which is currently counterproductive.)
--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
Joe Wangkauf
Jolly Roger <jolly...@pobox.com> wrote:
> In article <290120102322135893%tmo...@invalid.gmail.domain.com>,
> Joe Wangkauf <tmo...@invalid.gmail.domain.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <jollyroger-6970C...@news.individual.net>,
> > Jolly Roger <jolly...@pobox.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Mac OS X, being Unix, already has GNU emacs built in. In Mac OS X 10.6,
> > > it's GNU Emacs 22.1.1. So there's no need to download and install
> > > anything. Try this:
> > >
> > > 1. Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.
> > > 2. Enter the command: emacs
> > >
> > > I'm a little surprised someone with a Linux background wouldn't have
> > > discovered this on their own!
> >
> > Wow.. I've been using OS X since 10.4 and I never looked for that... I
> > did look for vi tho the first night I got my Mac.. which some would say
> > is even /more/ shameful.. ;-)
>
> I'm a long-time vi/vim veteran. It pays to know how to use vi/vim for
> someone in my field.
I've been using er.. the late 80's... I think? I used emacs on a PR1ME
computer and then found vi. I've always just found vi/vim to 'just
work'.. it's nice, simple and elegant. Emacs always pegged me as a
solution looking for a problem. I don't fault Stallman's hard work at
all. I mean it's obviously very powerful but I always feel like it's
big and fat compared to how vi works.
Jolly Roger
Joe Wangkauf <tmo...@invalid.gmail.domain.com> wrote:
It's also much less likely to be available on various *nix
installations. You can pretty much count on vi/vim being there, though.
; )
Jolly Roger
David Rogoff <da...@therogoffs.com> wrote:
The command-line mode *is* the normal mode.
> I also found out yesterday that I don't need to install a VNC client
> since OSX has one built in:
> /System/Library/CoreServices/Screen Sharing.app
> Works great to connect to my work WinXP box.
Yep. And you can use the Finders Go > Connect to Server dialog box to
connect to them by specifying vnc://hostname destinations.
Joe Wangkauf
Jolly Roger <jolly...@pobox.com> wrote:
Excellent point..!!!
Mac Dude
Harald Hanche-Olsen <han...@math.ntnu.no> wrote:
In response to the OP's question:
Carbon Emacs feels mostly like vanilla Emacs although the more recent versions
have added Mac-specific key bindings (Menu item Help:Carbon Emacs
Package:Mac-Style bindings or some-such). I use it and like it.
Aquamacs is trying hard to be more Mac like. Too hard for my taste. With older
systems I found Aquamacs to be quite sluggish although that is not an issue with
Intel Macs anymore. I remember that configuring it was tricky for me (I use
.emacs files and hooks, and I seem to recall that they did not work quite right
in Aquamacs). I do not use Aquamacs anymore.
If I wanted a Mac-like editor I'd use BBedit or its ilk. Emacs is not Mac-like.
I use Emacs because I want the power and features it has. But I am also used to
it from many years of using it.
FWIW,
M.D.
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---