Re: making software with Emacs and Elisp

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> I have several ideas for software that has to do with
> physical things, and does not belong in the world of
> computing. For example, I'm working on a tool to teach
> deaf people read lips! (Not "Lisp".)
>
> Is there a minimal binary Emacs VM for the accursed
> Apple and Windows world, that you could distribute along
> with the software, or is there another way you could
> make all that work?

There are binaries of emacs for MacOSX, MS-Windows and various unices
including GNU systems.

In general, an installation of emacs includes the emacs executable, plus
a set of compiled emacs lisp libraries (.elc files in /usr/share/emacs/).
Usually, there are also the source .el files.

There are also a few auxiliary programs in /usr/lib/emacs (movemail,
hexl, etc).

On a 64-bit system:

$ du -shc /usr/share/emacs/24.2/ /usr/lib/emacs/24.2/ /usr/bin/emacs24-x 
69M     /usr/share/emacs/24.2/
96K     /usr/lib/emacs/24.2/
13M     /usr/bin/emacs24-x
82M     total


The binary is only 13MB (about 8MB on a 32-bit system IIRC).
You could prefectly use only that.  You can try it with the -Q option:

    emacs -Q

and see what's left of the emacs user experience with it.

You could indeed develop an application on this bare emacs, but this
would be equivalent to develop an application on a bare Linux kernel
with only a shell and gcc installed.  You can write an ed-like editor in
bash, and soon enough be editing programs to be compiled with gcc.
Perhaps the first program you'd write would be a lisp interpreter in
which to write an emacs… But soon after that, you'll gather libraries to
be able to write higher level programs.  


To compare with little applications in the accursed Apple world:

428M    NeoOffice.app
346M    iWeb.app
225M    iTunes.app
177M    iPhoto.app
176M    GarageBand.app
158M    XBMC.app
141M    Coqide.app
139M    VLC.app
139M    Second Life Viewer 2.app
136M    DXOOpticsPro8.app
133M    Emacs.app
126M    Aquamacs.app
123M    iDVD.app
121M    Wireshark.app
115M    iMovie.app
103M    Firefox.app
--------------------------------> emacs 24.2 with everything
 67M    SeaMonkey.app
 64M    Skype.app
 56M    Camino.app
 54M    Mail.app
 53M    VLCStreamer.app
 53M    Firefox3.app
 52M    Coda.app
 51M    Thunderbird.app
 48M    SuperTrainsFree.app
 45M    Dropbox.app
 43M    Preview.app
 38M    iCal.app
 36M    Clozure CL.app
 31M    Safari.app
 31M    QuickTime Player.app
 30M    iChat.app
 22M    Photo Booth.app
 21M    Address Book.app
 20M    Plane Control Lite.app
 18M    ArgoUML.app
 16M    DivX Player.app
 ------------------------------> /usr/bin/emacs24-x
 13M    FaceTime.app
 12M    Nokia Multimedia Transfer.app
 11M    Font Book.app
 10M    DVD Player.app
 10M    Automator.app
 10M    App Store.app


So I don't see what you would earn, in preventing yourself to use the
*.elc libraries provided with emacs in your emacs application.

Unless you like to fight with both hands tied in the back.


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__
http://www.informatimago.com/