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Who's this Mort guy?

Emacs Est Mort, Vive Le TextMate! - O'Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog:

The idea is so simple that it borders on genius. Every function in TextMate is bound not only to a key combination, but also to a context. cmd-R may reload the current browser when editing an HTML document, but it compiles and runs your program when editing ObjC files. Depending on the context (which file is loaded), the same key combination (cmd-R) performs different functions.
So far, this is not new — Emacs supports something akin to this using hooks to load minor modes for certain file extensions. But TextMate makes it revolutionary by increasing granularity. Not only are key combinations sensitive to what types of files are loaded, they are also aware of language grammar.

Funny how an "avid Emacs user since college" missed that whole mode-keymap thing. Musta been that it wasn't called a "context" and weren't sporting as much HIG chrome as you can handle, baby! Oh YEAH!

Then a bit later, we get why:

Don’t get me wrong, being fluent in a programing language from 1958 gets me plenty of trim at parties. But apart from its outdated syntax and the fact that Emacs is the only reason I ever have to dust off my lambda calculus hat anymore, Lisp is just not well-suited to the task of munging text. And what do you to all day in a text editor? Munge text! So why use Lisp as the backbone of your editor when a modern scripting language like, say, perl makes so much more sense?

That lisp is SQUARESVILLE, Daddy-o! That's why The O'Reilly Group Media Interactive 2.0 doesn't publish any books on it, man! All the hip kids 'n' kittens are using that hot new scripting language called...(wait for it).. perl.

TextMate is a fine editor. I use it sometimes myself. But Jesus, I hope we're not going to see it develop its own branch of "BBEdit Historical Myopia," where those who are ignorant of editor feature history are doomed to think their favorite program invented it.


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Posted by John on May 15, 2006 4:43 PM |

Comments

Funny, I use Emacs to edit Perl all day. Last thing I want is Perl polluting my editor. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the good things about Perl but I grow more familiar with its drawbacks and limitations every day.

Not that I'm much of an elisp hacker or anything. I have never really learned how to hack Emacs. But its built-in goodness, especially CPerl-Mode, makes my life a lot easier. And keyboard macros can take you pretty far. :)

Posted by: Ed Heil | May 18, 2006 10:39 PM