Re: How to get rid of *GNU Emacs* buffer on start-up?

[rustom]

On Sep 29, 7:34 am, stan <smo...@exis.net> wrote:
>
> Actually no, I don't know any young people who use emacs and most older
> folks were more interested in getting their hands dirty so to speak.
>
> I understand. I do wonder where this idea that emacs needs to be
> competitive in the market comes from. I don't see that it really matters
> much to current users. People who use it will continue and developers
> will continue to maintain. Why does the number of users matter?

I studied computer science in '84 -- and I am an addicted user of
emacs. In '94 I even tried to write a mode like comint before there
was (or I knew of) comint.

I mention these things upfront so that you know my vintage and where I
am coming from.

You say that emacs does not need new users and does not need to be
competitive in the market-place.
>From 84 to now Ive seen a lot of things come and go. Many of the
things that went were probably replaced by 'better' things..... But
not always. Consider for example:

-- APL is dead.  Those who say Java (or whatever) is superior to APL,
have never used it. APL and Scheme were some of my most epiphanic
experiences.
-- Lisp is not dead but is not doing too well. emacs is responsible
both for its liveness and its ill-health. emacs-lisp was obsolete in
the mid-80s when common lisp and scheme replaced lisp. Anyhow this is
not my main point...
-- Norton/midnight commander etc are gone. Now we have windows
explorer and clones. Anyone whose used both will know what a drop in
productivity that is.

Well thats just a few things off the top of my head.  Others as old/
older than me can make similar lists... thats not my main point.

The emacs devs who make and maintain emacs are doing a great service.
I am personally beholden to them. But let me just ask -- What is their
average age?  More importantly, is this average age static or
increasing?
I dont know the answer to these questions but from my guestimates,
emacs will be dead in 10 years. (rms already cannot type).

So...

I agree with Xah though he unfortunately loses his punch by punching
too hard.

So let me restate his argument (in civilised language):

-- When emacs starts up it shows a buffer in Lisp interaction mode.
To what percentage of actual/wannabe emacs users is this mode
meaningful?

-- Even if buffer-offer-save is on C-xC-k asks but menu-close does
not. Is this not a bug?