Re: [9fans] emacs vs plan9

[Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com>]

saying 'everything is an edit buffer' doesn't get you very far.
you still need to talk about naming, authentication, security,
remote access, and so on.  you do get a user interface, though,
and that is clearly a powerful starting point.

saying 'everything is a file' brings along with it everything to
do with files that we're already familiar with: naming, permissions,
security, and so on.  a really telling detail is that network file systems
are well understood, so if we make everything a file we immediately
have remote access to everything.  we don't have a user interface
to something, at least the way emacs has (editing etc.) but we do
have shell scripts and other ways to build things from basics.

'better' is a bad term when comparing system design.  the goals
of systems differ.  but i think that 'file' brings more powerful and
systems-capable ideas to the table than does 'edit buffer'.

-rob