Re: Which is better, xemacs or gnu emacs?

[aquila_deus@yahoo.co.uk (Aquila Deus)]

"Mike Cox" <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<2r14t7F14lvf5U1@uni-berlin.de>...
> "Tim McNamara" <timmcn@bitstream.net> wrote in message
> news:m2wtysbw01.fsf@Stella-Blue.local...
> > mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com (Mike Cox) writes:
> >
> > > I recently switched to xemacs as my default word processor so I
> > > could do formatting in TEX for a very long document.  Most recently
> > > I've been using Microsoft Word, the latest version.  I switched
> > > because I thought that emacs had perfect stability and no crashes.
> > > My perception was formed due to the constant FSF/GPL/Linux advocacy
> > > promoted on slashdot and all the comp newsgroups.
> >
> > As a couple of minor quibbles:
> >
> > 1.  XEmacs is not Emacs, and XEmacs is not GNU or FSF software.
> >     XEmacs and Emacs are not interchangeable.
> 
> So which is better, XEmacs or GNU/Emacs?

XEmacs is faster, and easier to install, especially on windows.

> 
> > 2.  Nothing has perfect stability, everything else does not.
> 
> I understand.  So are you saying GNU/Emacs is more stable?

The CVS 21.3.50 I tried last year crashes almost everyday. And there
are always some weird problems in emacs with other packages (usually
out-dated and unmaintained). XEmacs beta has problems though, but not
serious.

> 
> > 3.  As a result, saving frequently and backing up one's documents is
> >     always a good idea.
> 
> So I could probably just use MS Word and get the features of VBA and COM+
> support, not to mention the robust default functionality?  If everyone
> crashes, why not just use the most feature rich program that has the most
> users?

Word is designed for kids... there is even no regexp searching.

> 
> > 4.  Emacs by default creates backup documents, you'll find them in
> >     the same directory as the file you were working on with a tilde
> >     after the filename.  Hopefully XEmacs, which I've never used, does
> >     the same thing.
> 
> I looked for it.  I also did that ALT-M thing to try to recover.  Whatever
> happened must of been quite serious because it ate my autosave document.

In fact I find auto-backup very annoying for me.

> 
> > See:
> >
> > http://www.xemacs.org/About/XEmacsVsGNUemacs.html
> >
> > http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html
> 
> WOW.  Those OSS/GNU guys really are immature.  I followed a link on the
> xemacs.org site and they really duked it out over emacs.  For those of you
> who would really like to see RMS and the XEMACS team battle from 15 years
> ago, visit this site:
> http://www.jwz.org/doc/lemacs.html
> 
> Talk about a nasty exchange.