Re: Debian's idiosyncratic complexification of Emacs

[Miles Bader]

Geoffrey Teale <address@hidden> writes:
> On a personal note - I find the idea of subverting the norms of an
> application to reduce usability in a distribution, not increase it.
> Especially where the tool in question (Emacs) is intended for a
> technical audience.
>
> I am certain that the Debian set up is there with the best of intentions
> (just like their Common LISP setup), but nothing has made  me more
> frustrated in a GNU/Linux distribution than the Emacs setup  under
> debian, and anyone of my colleagues at my last employer we  testify to
> that :)

To be fair though, debian has constraints that don't hold for a normal
emacs installation, like the desire to integrate external elisp packages
seamlessly, have multiple versions of emacs installed simultaneously,
and for those two things to not screw each other up.

>From what I know (I haven't looked at the details in ages though), I
think their approach is not too bad, though obviously it has warts,
historical and otherwise.  [I've even hacked up my .emacs so I can use
debian elisp packages, which is kind of convenient.]

Given that debian have reasonable goals, and aren't doing anything
egregiously stupid (no comment on that one, just assuming for the
moment... :-), it would be nice if emacs' default mechanisms would aid
what they're doing.  If there are conflicts, I think in many cases that
means emacs' mechanisms should be extended, rather than meaning debian
should give up their goals.

-Miles

-- 
Carefully crafted initial estimates reward you not only with
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increased self-esteem.         -- Numerical methods in C,
  Chapter 9. "Root Finding and Nonlinear Sets of Equations"