Talk:GNU Emacs

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[edit] Is XEmacs still first-paragraph-material?

Nowadays the XEmacs mailing lists are mostly full of spam [1], and Debian's "popularity contest" [2] reports that while 2151 computers have a recently used copy of emacs21, only 631 have a recently used copy of xemacs. ...and that 3.5:1 ratio over represents the lesser used package (xemacs) since computers with multiple users that have a recently used copy of each will still only register one vote for each despite the ratio indicating that the copy of emacs21 is probably used by more than 3.5 times as many people.

In the late 90s, the GNUemacs Vs. XEmacs was quite topical, and their usage stats were probably pretty close, but that was a long time ago. GNU Emacs has a GUI, and it is very actively maintained: the CVS repositry gets 28 commits per day on average [3], compared to 7 for xemacs [4].

Finally, a web search for "gnu emacs" and a web search for "xemacs" turn up approximately equal number of pages - despite "xemacs" being boosted by the fact that there is no command called "gnu emacs", while there is a command called "xemacs".

Now, none of the above methods are scientific. The Debian popularity contest numbers a kinda scientific, but they're not perfect. Web searches can reflect how many pages that websites use to discuss thing. CVS commits can reflect different check-in styles ...but when every unscientific method points to the same conclusion, scientists would be stupid to ignore it.

Sorry for being very wordy about something that's maybe not as controversial as I think it will be, but people to have emotional attachments to religous wars such as this. XEmacs was a reaction to Stallman's way of developing GNU Emacs. It highlighted a real problem, and in turn, GNU Emacs has now fixed that problem too. XEmacs is certainly part of the history of GNU Emacs, so I'm not saying it should be taken off the page, but are their any objections to be moving it into the body rather than the first paragraph? (Also, if anyone knows of other ways to evaluate how widely used the two packages are, please let me know.) --Gronky 16:43, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The decline in popularity accords with my own (admittedly anecdotal) experience. One way one could check would be to compare traffic on Usenet groups, or in the IRC channels.
But I would be careful in how one changed the mention of XEmacs. While you are at it, it would be a good idea to add something to the XEmacs article. --Maru (talk) Contribs 20:16, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
My own (old) statistics on usenet showed that the version of Gnus bundled with Emacs was more popular than the unbundled Gnus and the XEmacs version combined. So I believe Emacs has always been more widely used than XEmacs.--Per Abrahamsen 17:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unicode

Is emacs unicode compatible/aware? The article does not deal with unicode, when GNU emacs is a text editor and unicode is for common world text? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.41.137.29 (talk • contribs)

Better now? --maru (talk) contribs 20:19, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge into Emacs?

This article contains less information about GNU Emacs than the Emacs article does. It is small, is almost entirely made of duplicate content, and there are no signs of it improving. GNU Emacs is by far the primary implementation of Emacs, so that article is therefore talking about GNU Emacs anyway. If the Emacs article is seen as being too big, maybe elisp should be factored into a new article, but that's an "if" for future consideration. Any objections to a merge into Emacs? Gronky 09:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

If there is a disaparity in coverage, then fix it. If we can't even get agreement that use of GNU Emacs is greater than that of Xemacs, then I hardly think one can get consensus that GNU Emacs = Emacs for most people. --maru (talk) contribs 20:17, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
But we did get consensus that the use of GNU Emacs is greater than XEmacs - in the above section. --Gronky 21:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
No. You and I agreed that GNU Emacs is used more. That doesn't automatically translate to consensus, and certainly not to a consensus to swap the Emacs and GNU Emacs articles. --maru (talk) contribs 21:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I thought that 2 in favour and none against, with a six month comment period, was consensus - but these are details of a tangental point. I just realised that we're not discussing the same thing. I'm not proposing "GNU Emacs = Emacs" or that the two articles be swapped. I'm proposing that the small amount of unique content in "GNU Emacs" should be merged into "Emacs". The "Emacs" article will still be about "Emacs" in general. The only difference will that it won't avoid mentioning "GNU Emacs". If GNU Emacs is to remain a seperate article, then fleshing it out will only mean further duplication of the content of the "Emacs" article. Gronky 10:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I believe this article should just redirect to Emacs. Let Emacs cover both the RMS maintained editor (as the bulk of the article), and brifly cover the various forks and immitations. The forks and immitations should still have their own articles as well. I believe there is consensus, even among XEmacs developers, that the RMS's maintained editor is the base reference for what an emacs is.--Per Abrahamsen 17:38, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm doing this merge now. There is more discussion on the Talk:Emacs and there is clear consensus among those who've commented. Gronky 20:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)