Why isn't emacs installed by default

[Andrew Haley]

Nicolas Mailhot writes:
 > 
 > Le Lun 4 juin 2007 13:28, Andrew Haley a écrit :
 > 
 > > Can you please explain what you are talking about?  By "targets
 > > 1995-ish desktops," do you mean that emacs lacks pop-up windows,
 > > icons, menus, and so, on?  Or something else you desire?
 > 
 > I mean emacs does not use the current desktop font infrastructure,
 > does not use one of the main GUI desktop toolkits, does not support
 > cleanly i18n & our main encoding (UTF-8), does not integrate with the
 > accessibility infrastructure, does not integrate with the printing
 > infrastructure, and the list goes on and on.
 > 
 > That means emacs:
 > 1. is unable to provide a lot of features current desktop users expect
 > (and that's not a question of eye-candy, a terrific amount of work
 > happened on the desktop these past years)

Well, yes, but on the other hand the desktop is unable to provide a
lot of features current emacs users expect.  Why is one more important
than the other?  Why are the expectations of "current desktop users",
whomever they may be, more relevant than those of current emacs users?

 > 2. depends on a lot of stuff that must be kept working and configured
 > properly just for it.

OK, this closer to a sensible argument.  What are these things?

 > Emacs may join the 21st century in the next decade. Till it does it's
 > squarely aimed at the museum.

>From a user's point of view, the important thing is the extent to
which using the current desktop font infrastructure, using one of the
main GUI desktop toolkits, etc. would enhance emacs.

Andrew.

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