[implementations-list] Why accommodate non-Vi-like modal-editor emulation now? (was: Early implementation of...)

Thu Jul 2 19:47:18 CEST 2009

cc added:  John J. Foerch; he doesn't subscribe to
implementations-list.  Why not, John?  :)

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 7:38 AM, Frank Fischer
<frank.fischer at mathematik.tu-chemnitz.de> wrote:

> [snip]
>
> The point is that emacs' own keymaps are not powerful enough or well
> suited for modal editing (in my opinion).  But it's relatively easy to
> plug another keymap system on top of them.  In fact, the design is
> similar to emacs' own keymaps and minor/major modes.  That's the reason
> why other vim-emulation-packages just use emacs-keymaps and minor
> modes.

Would it be practical and useful to send patches to the FSF to improve
Emacs's keymap system?  Maybe the same improvements that would make
the keymap system better for us would also help other Emacs mode
developers.

> [snip]
>
> I have to say that currently the core-keymap-system is a little specific
> to vim (e.g. it knows of 'motions', 'commands' and 'argument'), but it
> should not be too difficult to make it more generic (I have some ideas
> in this direction I'll try in the next days).
>
> And, of course, there're some aspects that are not so easy to do the
> right way for all thinkable model-editing-schemes, like undo/redo or
> repeating.  The current implementation is oriented at vim's.  I have to
> think about making it more generic.
>
> Some last words.  I don't think we should try to build a system that can
> be the base of every thinkable modal-editing-scheme.  Focusing on vim
> seems more important to me, because I think this is what most people
> need and most people are used to.

Frank, both you, and also John J. Foerch with his modal-mode[1], are
already making accommodations for non-Vi-like modal editor emulation
now.  Why make any such accommodations now?  That takes work, and
maybe nobody will ever take advantage of that work.  AFAICT, only one
new non-Vi-like modal editor has gained even minor popularity nowadays
anymore:  DivaScheme[2], an add-on to DrScheme for editing Scheme code
more easily.  I suspect that modal editing has been losing market
share over time, and that it will never regain the market share it
used to have long ago.  For more on why, see Leon Bambrick's comment
at [3].

By the way, I no longer code in Lisp anymore nowadays.  But if you do
-- do you think it would be nice if some of DivaScheme's new editing
commands were added to Vim and Vimpulse?

^  [1].  http://jjfoerch.com/modal-mode/

^  [2].  Homepage:
http://www.cs.brown.edu/research/plt/software/divascheme/ ; manual:
http://www.cs.brown.edu/research/plt/software/divascheme/doc.txt

^  [3].  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14410/why-are-there-so-few-modal-editors-that-arent-vi/#14489