Cygwin-mount.el (Was: Re: Using GDB in NTEMACS)

[Jari Aalto+mail.linux]

* Fri 2002-02-22 Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> list.emacs-devel
* Message-Id: <address@hidden>
| > From: "Stefan Monnier" <monnier+gnu/address@hidden>
| > I haven't seen any example where the use of
| > cygwin-mount.el introduces any problem (let along subtle ones).
| 
| cygwin-mount.el isn't enough to solve this.
| 
| To support Cygwin-style file names, we need to fix all Emacs
| primitives which deal with file names so that they convert them to the
| native Windows form.  

I don't think this is the correct view to the issue. 

If I understood correct, your premises are that:

- If Emacs would include cygwin-mount.el, users expect to be able
  use FULL cygwin paths EVERYWHERE.

I donät think that is a correct view. I don't see in a foreseeable
future for anyone starting to use Cygwin style paths in their Lisp
code or applications, configurations they've made to Emacs, just
because there would be cygwin-mount.el shipped with Emacs.

The view is more like Stefan says:

- Most of the Win32 Emacs users will eventually install Cygwin
- To manage cygwin effectively under Emacs, one needs cygwin-mount.el  

The requirement of cygwin is natural, because a simple M-x grep,
doing diff, running RCS, or any other similar thing cannot be done
without cygwin.

Emacs and Cygwin go hand in hand in Win32: in fact Emacs is crippled
without it, so is XEmacs without Cygwin.

Users want to MANAGE cygwin from Emacs. They do not want to "use
cygwin paths" in their Emacs configuration. What I mean, is that users
that have installed cygwin want to be able to use addresses like:

    C-x C-f /etc/passwd

to configure their Apache, Inetd, Squid, Exim and
other nifty stuff that can now be used natively under Windows. Just
like you would in Linux.


That is the intent of cygwin-mount.el. It makes life easier. 

To require perfection before anything can be added to Emacs is
a sad paths for Emacs. It will not make it more user friendly.
By including something that (in lisp level) is not perfect,
will improve in time from the user's comments if there is
something to fix.

Adding cygwin-mount.el would be the best thing happened to
any Windows user. 


| I think before someone embarks on such a journey, we should talk to
| Cygwin developers and ask them to solve this on their side, at least
| for core development tools for which Emacs provides an interface.

This is against all the design decisions and I'm sure you
understand why. Cygwin is an Unix emulation, it should not
understand DOS style paths at all.

How the heck would a pure Unix application understand configuration
file that would include dos paths? You can't expect to change 10 000
unix applications to support DOS paths.

Cygwin cannpt solve that in their libraries, because the application
use the paths, not Cygwin.

Emacs is at least now pure windows application, so it understandas
DOs paths. But it could be taught to understand cygwin paths and
that change is small in the scope where cygwin paths are mainly
used.

cygwin-mount.el adds that extra, in a simple yet effective way.
Jari

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