Re: Fatal error (11). Emacs/ Linux hosed my very long document.

[Mike Cox]

David Kastrup wrote:

> Mike Cox <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> writes:
> 
>> David Kastrup wrote:
>>
>>> Mike Cox <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> writes:
>>> 
>>>> David Kastrup wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Mike Cox <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> writes:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'll admit that I don't know too much about emacs.  I was
>>>>>> pressing some random keys in the emacs window and all of a
>>>>>> sudden it just collapsed and core dumped.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Pressing random keys while writing a 100 page document in 5
>>>>> hours.  There are probably few other ways of getting this sort of
>>>>> output in this time rather than pressing random keys.
>>>>
>>>> I was pressing random keys trying to figure out how to save my
>>>> document.
>>> 
>>> After writing 100 pages of TeX document you try figuring out basic
>>> features of an editor.  Why didn't you write the document using
>>> "cat"?
>>
>> I went throught the emacs tutorial that shows the basic commands.  I
>> then entered the buffer and started typing.  After I was done, I was
>> going to convert everything to TeX.  It was only going to be very
>> basic TeX stuff.
> 
> 100 pages with lots of screen shots.  How do you include screen shots
> in a text that is not even written in TeX?

Easy.  

1.Create the screenshots.  Put them in a folder.  
2.Open emacs.  Type text in the buffer.  
3.When the text was finished, I would have gone onto Oreily's Safari and put
a TeX book in my virtual bookshelf.  I would have then read the TeX book
and followed along formatting my document.

I only got to step 2 when emacs crashed, hosing my text.  With the text, and
the size of the screenshots, I estimate that I would have had 100 pages of
review.  I don't know for certain because I never built the complete thing
of course.

> 
>>>> I was looking through the emacs help menu on how to do it (enduring
>>>> a lot of computer beeping).  That's when it crashed.  Emacs is a
>>>> nightmare to navigate.  Where is the "Save As" button on this
>>>> thing???
>>> 
>>> Try the "File/Save As" menu.  This is not so very uncommon between
>>> applications now, is it?
>>
>> Its kind of hard when the screen is not redrawing itself and xemacs
>> isn't responding to any commands.
> 
> In which case it would seem somewhat surprising that you can browse
> the help system looking for info about how to save a buffer.

Of course you can.  With another instance of emacs (have two emacs running). 
The other instance of emacs cannot save the file of the other instance, but
you can read the help.

> 
> At the moment you should be more concerned about saving face, though.
> There does not seem to be enough around for all the egg you insist to
> be putting on.

I'm just stating what happened.  Maybe it was user error, who knows. I
certainly will admit I am an emacs beginner.  It is true that I thought
emacs to be superiour to Word or VIM because of the LISP promotion everyone
was doing in the comp groups and in slashdot (Paul Graham chiefly).


>>>> The reason I didn't even save in the first place was because emacs
>>>> never asked me to create a new document when I started it up.  It
>>>> just dumped me in some "buffer".  In VIM you have to specify a
>>>> file when you open a document.
>>> 
>>> Since when?  You end in a scratch buffer if you start without
>>> specifying a file on the command line, just like with Emacs/XEmacs,
>>> and you end in a buffer for a particular file if you start it with
>>> a file name argument, just like Emacs/XEmacs.
>>
>> Ok now I know this.  Everything else about emacs seems so
>> counter-intuitive, especially the "scratch buffer" which is
>> supposedly for something called LISP.
> 
> Well, then start up Emacs with a file name in the first place.  Just
> like you do with vim.

I will next time.

>>>> Makes sense, and it works unlike emacs.
>>> 
>>> It works just the same as with Emacs/XEmacs.  Can't you come up with
>>> some lies that are more difficult to refute?
>>
>> These aren't lies, just my experience trying to use XEmacs.
> 
> That vim automagically guesses file names to use and XEmacs doesn't?
> Sorry that is a lie.  Without a file name, you get a scratch buffer in
> vim, too.

I never thought that you could specify a filename when starting emacs out. 
The tuturial doesn't even mention it if I recall correctly.  I read the VIM
tutorial and that is how I knew to do that in VIM.  I read the Emacs
tutorial and it showed a bunch of weird key commands and described some
alien modes.  It also mentioned that is is based in LISP.

>>>>>> And no there was NO autosave file.  And I was using a vanilla xemacs
>>>>>> version that comes standard with SuSE 8.2
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Well, according to "this guy", he had been writing a review, and
>>>>>>> had written 100 pages at the time of the crash.  A 100 page review,
>>>>>>> and written at a speed of 20 pages per hour.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> With a lot of screen shots and diagrams that I had already created.
>>>>> 
>>>>> In TeX.  And you include all those screen shots and diagrams in your
>>>>> source.  And know that the output will be 100 pages.  Which is pretty
>>>>> hard to estimate unless you actually run TeX on the file.  Which is
>>>>> pretty hard to do without saving the file first.  And you write a
>>>>> review that is supposed to be published on the Web with TeX.
>>>>
>>>> Well, first off, I don't know how to use TeX.
>>> 
>>> And you write a 100 page document including screen shots without
>>> knowing how to use TeX.
>>
>> I didn't say I included the screenshots in my document now, did I???
> 
> You said that you lost a 100 page document when XEmacs crashed.  And
> then you said that the 100 pages were due to screenshots.  If the
> screenshots were not in the document, it would be hard to see how they
> could have got lost.

They didn't get lost.  They are still in my folder.  A person can correctly
guess at the size of a document without putting it all together.  Each
screenshot was about 2 pages. If I had 25 screen shots that is 50 pages.
And from the amount of text I had, it probably came out to 45 pages.  I did
the math, and I would have had a 100 page document.

The screenshots are easier to recreate than the text.  That is why I
mentioned it even.  There is a bug in xemacs somewhere because it core
dumped.

> 
>> I had them created but they were not in the document, they were in
>> my home directory.  I just estimated that each screenshot would take
>> about 2 pages, because my monitor is half a page in size.
> 
> So you had 50 screen shots prepared to put into your document, and you
> managed crashing XEmacs for some reason before writing any of the rest
> of your document, so that you lost all 100 pages you had not yet
> written.  And XEmacs refused to provide an autosave file with all the
> 100 pages you had not yet written.  While that is a pity, I must say
> that I somehow think you are expecting too much.
> 
>> As for the document size, the scratch buffer doesn't show a new page
>> like MS Word does, it just keeps the text going and going.
> 
> A new page.  When you intent to convert this to TeX.  Wow.
> 
>> To me it seemed like a 100 pages.  There was no way to know for sure
>> unless I imported it into MS Word or printed it out.  But my best
>> guess is that it would end up that size.
> 
> Once you put in all the screenshots that weren't there and which you
> lost nevertheless.  My condolences.
> 
>>>> I was going to do the format after I had everything written out. I
>>>> wanted everything typed just in case I couldn't figure out how to
>>>> use TeX. I had my screenshots done already and they take about 2
>>>> pages each.
>>> 
>>> And you already included them into your TeX document, though you
>>> don't know TeX and have not read one scrap of documentation about
>>> either TeX or Emacs.  So that all your 100 pages were lost.  In a
>>> manner that all screen shots magically disappeared from your disk.
>>> Wow.  Congrats.  You are a real magician.
>>
>> Read the above.  I still have my screenshots.  Those I could have
>> easily recreated if they were lost BTW.  What I did lose was a lot
>> of unformatted text that I was going to format using TeX after I had
>> it written out.
> 
> 100 pages of them including screen shots.
> 
>>>> So my scratch buffer was quite full of text, I'm not sure if it was
>>>> 100 pages, but it sure seemed like it.
>>> 
>>> You are quite full of it.  I'm not sure if it 100 percent, but it
>>> sure seems like it.
>>
>> I hope I'm clearing it up in this post.  I can see how you could
>> have become confused.
> 
> It's not that it needed much clearing up, in particular given your
> posting history, but you nevertheless manage an impressive job doing
> that.
> 
>>>>>> There is a GNUS bug in xEMACS AND FSF Emacs.  I'll bet you can
>>>>>> even reproduce it.  Get a dialup connection to the internet.
>>>>>> Start up gnus.  Read your favorite groups, and if your dailup
>>>>>> connection disconnects while you are downloading an article, GNUS
>>>>>> will completely FREEZE UP!!!!  I had to stop using GNUS because of
>>>>>> that reason and am now using knode.
>>>>> 
>>>>> One presses C-g.  That's it.  You then use ^ in the Group buffer to
>>>>> go to the server buffer and close the connection to the server with
>>>>> C.  You leave the server buffer with q, and then you just continue
>>>>> working once the connection is up again.
>>>>
>>>> Try it.  Didn't work for me.
>>> 
>>> I do this all the time.
>>
>> What I think you are forgetting is that I'm a NEW emacs user.
> 
> And the key combinations work differently for new users?  Hardly.  You
> could complain that the info about C-g is hard to find, and about how
> to go about reconnecting to a broken connection.  But that's not what
> you complained about.  You said that the keys I gave you didn't work.
> And that places you from the category of newbie into that of liar.

They didnt work.  When emacs was unresponsive, and not redrawing itself,
nothing worked.  I had my document in the buffer and I was attempting to
use gnus when it crashed.  And when I mean crashed, the screen stopped
redrawing itself and then emacs just disappeared.  That is a core dump.
> 
>> Of course you have no problems using emacs, you've been using it
>> however many X years.
> 
> It does not behave differently to newbies than to experienced users.
> Finding out everything will require work, of course.  But lying about
> it does not help.
> 
>> You are used to it so much that you don't even probably do things
>> that *could* break it.
> 
> You have no idea how many things in XEmacs and Emacs I managed to
> break.  Because I am a programmer.

Maybe that is why you are so touchy about this.  Could it be that something
you program is related to emacs?  Are you an emacs developer?  It is better
to admit that something is broken and fix it than to try and save face and
hide it.  Look at Microsoft and the Word "Disk Full" bug.  I doubt that
people will think any less of emacs if there is a bug in it.  

They will just realize that emacs is another program, not some
indestructible LISP crash-free super program.  They will realize that it is
just like MS Word, where instead of Visual Basic, it uses LISP for its
extendability.

> 
>>>> Try again.  I tried all the key combinations from the emacs
>>>> tutorial, C-g included.  I tried this on both xemacs and fsf emacs,
>>>> both hung.  You can try it too.  Get SuSE 8.2 and do it using both
>>>> xemacs or fsf emacs.
>>> 
>>> It works.  Simple as that.
>>
>> That's what Bill Gates says about Windows too.  Doesn't make it true
>> now???
> 
> I would not say that Windows does not work, all in all.  Just not for
> my purposes.  However, C-g works just fine for interrupting access to
> a broken connection.  I use it all the time.
>