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Re: XEmacs, Emacs and elisp



Hi,
>>"Mark" == Mark Eichin <eichin@cygnus.com> writes:

>> know when file sellection will be available and I think it wouldn't
>> solve such sophisticated problems like: I want package A for Emacs,
>> package B for XEmacs and package C for both of them. :-)

Mark> There are no plans to solve this non-problem :-) The high level
Mark> goal is that any package that depends on emacs works with any
Mark> and all of them.  We should be able to accomplish this.

      This may be a simplification. Have you looked at the hoops
 one has to go through to achieve this goal? Do we really expect the
 maintainer have the time, the expertise and the motivation to do
 this? This is a short list off the cuff (and a quick look at a few
 packages lying around on my machine). Please correct me
 if I'm wrong about any of this.

 o Face handling is different (example: XEmacs cannot display
   initialized faces.) 
 o Font size handlig code has to be masked for Emacs (other font
   attributes too?)
 o Color and Frames are done differently
 o XEmacs and Emacs have different definitions of `facep'.
 o Menu handling is different
 o Toolbar handling is Missing in Emacs
 o Mouse button 3 policies are different
 o Lots of Byte compiler options missing in XEmacs (granted, most
   packages don't set these -- but those that do, boy, are they a pin
   to support for XEmacs)
 o Text property stuff is handled differently in Emacs and XEmacs
 o Timers are different in the variants.
 o Inline images (glyphs) are missing in Emacs.
 o XEmacs addons can rely on various bundled extensions that may or
   may not be present. (Wanna try port mouse-sel-3 to XEmacs?)
   tm.vm.w3.hyperbole.object browser.bbdb.psgml. 
 o Characters and events are totally different. (are chars ints?)
 o Overlays  and extents?
 o Most display related code has to be massaged beyond recognition.
 o mail-abbrev vs mailabbrev
 o optional arg n various functions (like exchange-point-and-mark),
   and different calling sequences for others.
 o intangible (Emacs) vs atomic (XEmacs)
 o various functions found in one (event-point) or the other
   (error-message-string) variant.
 o XEmacs handles read only extents differently from read only text
   properties in Emacs.
 o *Binding mouse buttons* is different. !!

   Need I go on?

    I do *not* think we can make everything work with each variant of
 GNU Emacs, and we should nip such wishful thinking in the bud, and
 try to come up with a workable solution.

     manoj

-- 
 "He didn't run for reelection. `Politics brings you into contact with
 all the people you'd give anything to avoid,' he said. `I'm staying
 home.'" Garrison Keillor, _Lake_Wobegone_Days_
Manoj Srivastava               <url:mailto:srivasta@acm.org>
Mobile, Alabama USA            <url:http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>


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