Emacs appearances in pop culture

Also, we're really close to the 24 year anniversary of "Dilemma": https://hollawhenyougetthis.com

  5 CLS
  10 PRINT "PLOT BILATERAL CO-ORDINATES"
  15 PRINT : PRINT
  20 GOSUB 5000
  25 PRINT "INPUT CO-ORDINATE X :  "
  31 PRINT "4";
  33 PRINT "2";
  35 PRINT "Y" : PRINT
  40 PRINT "INPUT CO-ORDINATE Y :  "
  41 IF INKEY$ = "" THEN 41 : IF
  42 PRINT "Z";
  43 IF INKEY$ = "" THEN 43 : IF
  44 PRINT "+";
  45 IF INKEY$ = "" THEN 45 : IF
  46 PRINT "X"
  47 GOSUB 5000
  50 CLS
  60 PRINT "0010 N = RND(900)"
  70 PRINT "0020 Z = 1 TO N"
  80 PRINT "0030 X = 1 TO 31"
  90 PRINT "0040 Y = 1 TO 15"
  100 PRINT "0050 SET(31-X,16-Y,Z)TO(31+X,Y,"
  110 PRINT "0060 SET(31+X,Y,Z)TO(31-X,16-Y,"
  120 PRINT "0070 SET(X,16+Y,Z-Y)TO(X,Y,Z)"
  130 PRINT "0080 SET(X,16-Y,Z+Y)TO(16+X,Y+)"
  140 PRINT "0090 GOTO 500"
  150 PRINT "0100 NEXT X:NEXT Y:NEXT Z
  160 PRINT "0110 CLS"
  170 PRINT "0120 DATA 1.13.2.67.2."
  180 PRINT "0130 DATA 12.45.90.3.23.56.2.56"
  190 PRINT "0140 DATA 3.6.1.43.92.56.2.9.08"
  200 PRINT "0150 DIM P(9)"
  210 PRINT "0160 B$ = CHR$(191)"
  220 PRINT "0170 FOR X = Y - Z : PRINT X"
  230 PRINT "0180 FOR Y = X - Z : PRINT Y"
  240 PRINT "0190 END"
  250 PRINT
  260 PRINT
  270 PRINT
  280 PRINT
  290 PRINT
  300 PRINT
  310 PRINT
  320 PRINT
  330 PRINT
  340 PRINT
  350 PRINT

https://onlinegrad.syracuse.edu/blog/mr-robot-cybersecurity-...

For me, it'd be primarily having more than one undo. Not being able to undo the second-to-last change is pretty bad. In fact, vim's undo being set up as a tree that can be walked with g- and g+ is excellent. It's impossible to lose a state of the buffer, even if you undo and make changes. It's a lot more practical to navigate than Emacs' undo, too.

EDIT: I just realized that nvi can undo more than one change by having u toggle the direction and . continue in that direction. I don't think ex-vi could. busybox vi seems like it can undo multiple with u but it seems to have no redo.

Is that something you just get used to, or was I using some weird vi?

https://k.japko.eu/busybox-vi-tutorial.html

Perhaps VI would make a good snake name, though: VIper.

The Amazon file is also DRM-free, I picked that option when self-publishing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYCZJVGX

As for tabs vs spaces, in theory, tabs are more flexible than spaces and allow everyone to view the file with their preferred indentation levels. In practice, I have only seen one codebase — ONE — in all my years of programming that was using tabs and yet did not end up with spaces getting mixed in with those tabs at some point along the way. (In the indentation, I mean: obviously once the non-indentation part of the line starts, you want spaces there). And that codebase had precisely two people committing regularly to it. Occasional PRs from other contributors, but only two primary maintainers.

Every other tab-using codebase I've seen (of non-trivial size and complexity, that is), someone, somewhere, had been lazy, or had a misconfigured editor, or something, and spaces snuck into the tabs. The worst offender I ever saw was a file that had been edited by multiple people over the years, who must have had different tab settings in their editors. There was one section where they had tried to line up a bunch of variable assignments and values. (Yes, I know, bad idea, but stick with me for a minute, I'm getting to the punchline). None of the pieces of code that were supposed to line up were actually lined up. (This was C# code, so indentation didn't truly matter like it would in F#, or Python, or ... well, I won't list all of them since I'm trying to get to the point). Here's the really hilarious part. I tried all sorts of tab settings to see if I could get that file to line up. I tried 8. I tried 4. I tried 2. I even tried 3, the setting for the people who can't make their minds up between 4 and 2. Then I tried really oddball settings like 16, 5, or even 7. Nothing worked. There was no tab-size setting I could use that would make the code line up. Which entirely negates the whole point of tabs, that you can set your own indentation.

That was the day I said "Forget about tabs, just use spaces, you won't have that problem with spaces." Tabs have great promise, but in practice, in my experience at least, you end up having to tell your colleagues "hey, you need to set your tabs to 4" (or 8, or 2, or ... well, you better not be using any other numbers) "before editing this file". Which basically negates the whole point of tabs. They're great in theory, but I've only seen ONE codebase that made them work in practice.

(Hah, I just looked around a bit more, and Wikipedia cites an archived mailing list message that I don't remember seeing before: https://web.archive.org/web/20181027195101/http://blade.naga... I remember at some point Emacs Lisp specifically being cited as an inspiration, but I might be confabulating that, I didn't find a source for it.)

Also, here's a fun paragraph from the opening comments of quail.el (lightly reformatted):

> [There was an input method for Mule 2.3 called ‘Tamago’ from the Japanese ‘TAkusan MAtasete GOmen-nasai’, or ‘Sorry for having you wait so long’; this couldn't be included in Emacs 20. ‘Tamago’ is Japanese for ‘egg’ (implicitly a hen's egg). Handa-san made a smaller and simpler system; the smaller quail egg is also eaten in Japan. Maybe others will be egged on to write more sorts of input methods.]