Re: X11 Mac OS X 10.3 emacs fink: only terminal?

[Joe Corneli]

   On 2004-12-14, Joe Corneli <jcorneli@math.utexas.edu> wrote:
   > I'm not saying it is unacceptable to use Emacs under Aqua, I'm saying
   > that it isn't "better".  The OP was asking for help with X11

   The OP asked for help in getting a windowed emacs working in osx, with
   scrollbars etc.  If that was all he was after, the carbon emacs is
   something he needed to know about, if he didn't already.  So I mentioned
   it.  Btw I also gave him the pointer to fix his X11 problem.  

   As it turns it, the OP mentioned later that he has other X11 needs, and
   that was the end of that as far as I was concerned.  This is where you
   come in.

   Personally I'm a pragmatist about such things.  Sorry but I just don't
   like fundamentalism.  I have both an X11 build and a carbon build on my
   system and I use whichever one makes more sense at any given time.
   Sometimes I run emacs in a terminal.  Sometimes I use vim.  Like most
   people who read this newsgroup, I'm clever enough to adapt to my
   environment and to circumstances.



   > seems inappropriate to suggest a nonfree replacement.

   This is just utterly absurd. He's already made the decision to run osx.
   That was done before this discussion even started.  Get over it.  Maybe
   you think there's some great moral issue in play if you run ./configure
   with --with-carbon instead of --with-x11.  But if you do, well, frankly
   that makes you a loon imo.


Why would I want to use some parochial, proprietary, monolithic,
*nonfree* windowing system when I could use an advanced, portable,
highly configurable free one (i.e., X11 and ratpoison ;))?  I run OS
X, but my user experience is essentially indistinguishable from my
experience on GNU/Linux.  Same window manager, same shell, same
configurations.  If I run into something that can't be done with free
software on my box, I typically don't do it.  There are a few
exceptions, which I've justified to myself in various ways.  For
example, I used a synthesizer that, when running on OS X, relies on
one specific nonfree part of the OS X system in a nontrivial way.  I
wanted to write an emacs interface for this program.  (If I understand
correctly, other people were working on porting other software to OS X
that would eliminate the dependence on these nonfree components; they
might be done by this time, I don't know.)  My setup might rely on
some other low-level nonfree parts of the operating system that I
don't know about: I haven't investigated, but it doesn't seem
unlikely.  That isn't terribly important to me.  What's important to
me is that my work and UI are free and portable.  Anything else would
be a waste of my time and effort, and not at all pragmatic.  It
doesn't take me long to "convert" a virgin OS X or GNU/Linux setup
into one that feels just like the one I'm using now.  That's how I
adapt to my environment: I make it adapt to me.  I'm certainly not
going to sit there banging away with some feature-poor keyboard
layout, dragging windows around with a pointing device, injuring
myself and working at a snail's pace, not for long, not unless I'm
forced to.

If you don't dig it, I'm not going to get upset.  You work however you
want to work, I'm not trying to stop you or insult you or convert you
or tell you what works for you when I haven't really got a clue or
anything of the sort.  The point I was making is that on GNU lists, it
is forbidden to recommend nonfree software.