Re: Octave workshop for Octave 3.0.0 on windows Xp

[Przemek Klosowski]

   > Emacs is really not that difficult to learn to use.  I recommend that
   > you try starting Emacs and typing Ctrl-h t to run the tutorial.
   > Although it may require some effort to learn, I think you will be
   > rewarded many times over in the long run.

   It seems to me that The-Best-Editor-in-the-World (TM) would only be able
   to make me type faster (word-completion, auto-indenting, etc.). What I
   need is a piece of software that makes me _think_ faster, because that's
   the real bottleneck. I spend most of my time developing algorithms
   (pen-and-paper work + trial-and-error stuff at the Octave prompt) -- the
   actual implementations usually only takes a fraction of my time. So, I
   never bothered learning Emacs, because I'm not that sure it's the right
   part of routine to improve.

You are absolutely right about that: the best editor is one that feels
completely out of the way, one that doesn't disrupt your thinking.

Emacs is a good editor, but the principal reason I stick with it is
because I have it (or its equivalent) on all the platforms that I
use---and I have a guarantee that it will work everywhere I'll need to
be in the future.

My motion memory is wired for Emacs. I don't have to think how to type
commands--my fingers know what to do.  I don't have to move my hands
to the mouse, although I do it occasionally e.g. for large selections.
It helps that I can configure my Gnome environment with Emacs keyboard
shortcuts, so that basic Emacs commands work in all GTK widgets.(*)

My first editor was the Borland Turbo IDE and it was OK until I lost
it because it was not available on VMS and Linux (yes I am an old fart).
After that experience, I learned to love Emacs and stopped worrying.
This reminds me of the old joke:

     "What's worse than a bad general?"
     "Two good generals."

Executive summary: doesn't matter what you chose: just pick something
that exists everywhere you need to be, and run with it.

This will be my only post about editor preferences.

     p



(*) The flip side of this argument is that GTK by default uses the
standard 'Windows' set of keybindings shared by all Windows applications 
(Ctrl-A selects all, Ctrl-C copies Ctrl-V pasts)---so why not stick
with those? Well, that set is much less complete than Emacs, so ceter
paribus I'd rather use Emacs'.