EMACS.net?

Submitted by tbuitenh on Tue, 2008-01-01 11:16.

tbuitenh

Posts: 1059
Joined: 2005-12-21

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1069

Is today April 1st or January 1st?

a microsoft person wrote:

We are looking for developers/testers to build a tool that I will roughly describe as "Emacs.Net".

No more details than that, but it should be enough to get your brain moving in the right direction.

Okay, so they're building a text editor that most programmers will hate because of its weird user interface, impossible to remember keybindings and unreadable extension language, then they will release it with a license that allows everyone to modify it as long as the modified versions will allow the same freedoms, and then that license will become the most popular free software license in the world? Is that it? Cause that's the direction my brain moves in when someone uses the word EMACS.

By the way, the first version of EMACS was written in 1976. MS is 32 years behind RMS Smiling

CAN I HAS FIXD CAPSLOK KEE PLZ?

Tue, 2008-01-01 23:56 I wonder when will they

libervisco

Posts: 3783
Joined: 2006-05-04

I wonder when will they come out with an ad saying something in the lines of "Behold, an innovative, powerful and flexible new editor from Microsoft" efficiently hiding the fact that it is not innovative at all and that its origins are not in Microsoft, but in a man who may very well be called their worst nightmare (sorry ESR, you don't fit the label as much), RMS.

Makes me kind of uneasy, but hey who are we to call them out on copying an idea. We promote that kind of thing!

What we don't promote though is putting it under a proprietary restrictive license and then going after the emacs "market" with that! That's a reason for more than just uneasiness...

As devious as MS tends to be it might as well end up telling us "see, you're going against software patents, but if RMS patented the concept behind emacs we wouldn't be able to steal it. HA!". Ok, perhaps a bit too far fetched, but hey.. it's Microsoft and this is 2008. There is little which is far fetched to those who know the "spirit" of this age! Eye-wink

Cheers

Libervis Network - Because Life's Not Read-Only

Wed, 2008-01-02 05:19 Well, now Microsoft has

reptiler

Posts: 721
Joined: 2006-03-28

Well, now Microsoft has that PowerShell, which acts as a Bash-standin for Windows. It really can do a lot more than the normal Windows-Commandline, but it still is far from what you're being used to from Bash. I guess if they would want to make Unix-/Linux-commandline-users feel comfortable with Windows by offering a commandline they should copy the behaviour and style of commands from Bash, or another popular shell (although Bash probably is the most popular).

As an addition now they want to bring Emacs.NET. I guess this goes in the same direction, as something for the Unix-people who like to have an editor that nicely integrates with the PowerShell...

I think that both attempts come too late. Nobody who frequently uses the CLI in Unix/Linux and even likes doing this will go (back) to Windows, just because now they have their own "powerful" (I couldn't manage to do much more than with the normal Windows-CLI with this; but I didn't test very much) shell and then even their own Emacs. Also these tools are nothing for the "normal Windows-user", they are just beyond what he's willing to invest into learning the system.

For me these things are failed attempts. Maybe some Windows-admins might be happy about them, but they for sure will not make anybody switch (back) to Windows.

That said, I see no reason to worry.

Wed, 2008-01-02 09:45 worry?

tbuitenh

Posts: 1059
Joined: 2005-12-21

reptiler wrote:

That said, I see no reason to worry.

I'm mostly worried about my own sense of humor, since the idea of emacs.net seems funny to me.

CAN I HAS FIXD CAPSLOK KEE PLZ?

Wed, 2008-01-02 13:48 Actually it really is quite

reptiler

Posts: 721
Joined: 2006-03-28

Actually it really is quite funny. If it really is the way you and I have painted out (really being a clone of Emacs, and an addition to the PowerShell, which in itself already is quite a failure, although the idea is not bad, it's just too late) then it has to be a total failure. Well, it would be deserved...