2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
|
|
|
EMACS
|
|
|
|
|
|
2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
|
|
|
/eemaks/ , n. [from Editing MACroS] The ne plus ultra of hacker editors, a
|
|
|
|
|
programmable text editor with an entire LISP system inside it. It was
|
|
|
|
|
originally written by Richard Stallman in TECO under ITS at the MIT AI lab;
|
|
|
|
|
AI Memo 554 described it as an advanced, self-documenting, customizable,
|
|
|
|
|
extensible real-time display editor. It has since been reimplemented any
|
|
|
|
|
number of times, by various hackers, and versions exist that run under most
|
|
|
|
|
major operating systems. Perhaps the most widely used version, also written
|
|
|
|
|
by Stallman and now called GNU EMACS or GNUMACS , runs principally under
|
|
|
|
|
Unix. (Its close relative XEmacs is the second most popular version.) It
|
|
|
|
|
includes facilities to run compilation subprocesses and send and receive
|
|
|
|
|
mail or news; many hackers spend up to 80% of their tube time inside it.
|
|
|
|
|
Other variants include GOSMACS , CCA EMACS, UniPress EMACS, Montgomery
|
|
|
|
|
EMACS, jove, epsilon, and MicroEMACS. (Though we use the original all-caps
|
|
|
|
|
spelling here, it is nowadays very commonly Emacs. ) Some EMACS versions
|
|
|
|
|
running under window managers iconify as an overflowing kitchen sink,
|
|
|
|
|
perhaps to suggest the one feature the editor does not (yet) include.
|
|
|
|
|
Indeed, some hackers find EMACS too heavyweight and baroque for their taste,
|
|
|
|
|
and expand the name as Escape Meta Alt Control Shift to spoof its heavy
|
|
|
|
|
reliance on keystrokes decorated with bucky bits. Other spoof expansions
|
|
|
|
|
include Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping (from when that was a lot of
|
|
|
|
|
core ), Eventually malloc () s All Computer Storage , and EMACS Makes A
|
|
|
|
|
Computer Slow (see recursive acronym ). See also vi.
|
|
|
|
|
|
