Re: Fatal error (11). Emacs/ Linux hosed my very long document.

[Mike Cox]

David Kastrup wrote:

> Mike Cox <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> writes:
> 
>> David Kastrup wrote:
>>
>>> Mike Cox <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> writes:
>>> 
>>>> David Kastrup wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "wlcna" <wlcna@nospam.com> writes:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> "Mike Cox" <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>>>>> 3d6111f1.0409161437.30ef8b7d@posting.google.com">news:3d6111f1.0409161437.30ef8b7d@posting.google.com...
>>>>>>>I recently switched to xemacs as my default word processor so I could
>>>>>>> do formatting in TEX for a very long document.  Most recently I've
>>>>>> [...]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't really care about this discussion because I don't like/can't
>>>>>> stand emacs (I use vi and vim) and also initially thought the o.p.
>>>>>> was a complete liar and troll, but having looked at his other posts
>>>>>> and his posting
>>>>>> history, I no longer believe this and moreover...  I NOW THINK this
>>>>>> guy has
>>>>>> a point:  xemacs is a pile of crap if this guy was editing for five
>>>>>> hours and it crashed out of nowhere on him.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think xemacs has a problem here because I've NEVER ONCE
>>>>>> experienced a crash with vim, whether it be using it from the
>>>>>> command line or gui.  Not once, and it's the only editor I've been
>>>>>> using for years, and I don't use it in any plain, stripped down
>>>>>> versions, but pretty well feature-maxed versions, under multiple
>>>>>> operating systems and windowing environments.  This guy was editing
>>>>>> for five hours and he gets a crash "out of nowhere."
>>>>
>>>> I'll admit that I don't know too much about emacs.  I was pressing
>>>> some random keys in the emacs window and all of a sudden it just
>>>> collapsed and core dumped.
>>> 
>>> Pressing random keys while writing a 100 page document in 5 hours.
>>> There are probably few other ways of getting this sort of output in
>>> this time rather than pressing random keys.
>>
>> I was pressing random keys trying to figure out how to save my
>> document.
> 
> After writing 100 pages of TeX document you try figuring out basic
> features of an editor.  Why didn't you write the document using "cat"?

I went throught the emacs tutorial that shows the basic commands.  I then
entered the buffer and started typing.  After I was done, I was going to
convert everything to TeX.  It was only going to be very basic TeX stuff.

I didn't know you could write using "cat".  I thought the program only lists
the contents of a file in a shell.

> 
>> I was looking through the emacs help menu on how to do it (enduring
>> a lot of computer beeping).  That's when it crashed.  Emacs is a
>> nightmare to navigate.  Where is the "Save As" button on this
>> thing???
> 
> Try the "File/Save As" menu.  This is not so very uncommon between
> applications now, is it?

Its kind of hard when the screen is not redrawing itself and xemacs isn't
responding to any commands. And then all of a sudden xemacs disappears, and
an error message box pops up saying "core dump".

> 
>> The reason I didn't even save in the first place was because emacs
>> never asked me to create a new document when I started it up.  It
>> just dumped me in some "buffer".  In VIM you have to specify a file
>> when you open a document.
> 
> Since when?  You end in a scratch buffer if you start without
> specifying a file on the command line, just like with Emacs/XEmacs,
> and you end in a buffer for a particular file if you start it with a
> file name argument, just like Emacs/XEmacs.

Ok now I know this.  Everything else about emacs seems so counter-intuitive,
especially the "scratch buffer" which is supposedly for something called
LISP.  

> 
>> Makes sense, and it works unlike emacs.
> 
> It works just the same as with Emacs/XEmacs.  Can't you come up with
> some lies that are more difficult to refute?

These aren't lies, just my experience trying to use XEmacs.

>>>> And no there was NO autosave file.  And I was using a vanilla xemacs
>>>> version that comes standard with SuSE 8.2
>>>>
>>>>> Well, according to "this guy", he had been writing a review, and
>>>>> had written 100 pages at the time of the crash.  A 100 page review,
>>>>> and written at a speed of 20 pages per hour.
>>>>
>>>> With a lot of screen shots and diagrams that I had already created.
>>> 
>>> In TeX.  And you include all those screen shots and diagrams in your
>>> source.  And know that the output will be 100 pages.  Which is pretty
>>> hard to estimate unless you actually run TeX on the file.  Which is
>>> pretty hard to do without saving the file first.  And you write a
>>> review that is supposed to be published on the Web with TeX.
>>
>> Well, first off, I don't know how to use TeX.
> 
> And you write a 100 page document including screen shots without
> knowing how to use TeX.

I didn't say I included the screenshots in my document now, did I???  I had
them created but they were not in the document, they were in my home
directory.  I just estimated that each screenshot would take about 2 pages,
because my monitor is half a page in size.  As for the document size, the
scratch buffer doesn't show a new page like MS Word does, it just keeps the
text going and going. To me it seemed like a 100 pages.  There was no way
to know for sure unless I imported it into MS Word or printed it out.  But
my best guess is that it would end up that size.

> 
>> I was going to do the format after I had everything written out. I
>> wanted everything typed just in case I couldn't figure out how to
>> use TeX. I had my screenshots done already and they take about 2
>> pages each.
> 
> And you already included them into your TeX document, though you don't
> know TeX and have not read one scrap of documentation about either TeX
> or Emacs.  So that all your 100 pages were lost.  In a manner that all
> screen shots magically disappeared from your disk.  Wow.  Congrats.
> You are a real magician.

Read the above.  I still have my screenshots.  Those I could have easily
recreated if they were lost BTW.  What I did lose was a lot of unformatted
text that I was going to format using TeX after I had it written out.

> 
>> So my scratch buffer was quite full of text, I'm not sure if it was
>> 100 pages, but it sure seemed like it.
> 
> You are quite full of it.  I'm not sure if it 100 percent, but it sure
> seems like it.

I hope I'm clearing it up in this post.  I can see how you could have become
confused.
> 
>>> Sorry, but your whole story is utter hogwash.  I won't debate that
>>> it is possible under circumstances to get Emacs or XEmacs to crash,
>>> in particular developer versions.  And I won't rule out the
>>> possibility that you encountered such a possibility.
>>> 
>>> But the story you weaved around that (_if_ it happened) is complete
>>> and utter hogwash.
>>
>> Of course it happened.  How else would I even be able to post the
>> core dump file???
> 
> It does not require the fabricated story around it.
> 
>>>> There is a GNUS bug in xEMACS AND FSF Emacs.  I'll bet you can
>>>> even reproduce it.  Get a dialup connection to the internet.
>>>> Start up gnus.  Read your favorite groups, and if your dailup
>>>> connection disconnects while you are downloading an article, GNUS
>>>> will completely FREEZE UP!!!!  I had to stop using GNUS because of
>>>> that reason and am now using knode.
>>> 
>>> One presses C-g.  That's it.  You then use ^ in the Group buffer to
>>> go to the server buffer and close the connection to the server with
>>> C.  You leave the server buffer with q, and then you just continue
>>> working once the connection is up again.
>>
>> Try it.  Didn't work for me.
> 
> I do this all the time.

What I think you are forgetting is that I'm a NEW emacs user.  I am
approaching it as a newbie, and as other newbies would see it.  I learned
emacs and vim at the same time, and vim is already productive to me whereas
emacs is still a mystery with its various modes, weird key
combinations,ect.

Of course you have no problems using emacs, you've been using it however
many X years.  You are used to it so much that you don't even probably do
things that *could* break it.  That is why programmers are always miffed
when they hand off their program and the tester breaks it.  They always
say, "well it worked for me".  The programmer only used the program in a
certain way.  You are like that programmer and I'm like the tester.  And
I'm saying, "wait a minute, it doesn't quite work yet!"

> 
>> Try again.  I tried all the key combinations from the emacs
>> tutorial, C-g included.  I tried this on both xemacs and fsf emacs,
>> both hung.  You can try it too.  Get SuSE 8.2 and do it using both
>> xemacs or fsf emacs.
> 
> It works.  Simple as that.

That's what Bill Gates says about Windows too.  Doesn't make it true now???

> 
>>>>> Nice piece of flame-bait here.  Thankfully, you are not
>>>>> representative for the typical vim user.
>>>>> 
>>>>
>>>> I have used vim and it too has NEVER crashed on me yet.
>>> 
>>> While reading news with it?  Well, vim has also NEVER crashed on me
>>> when I used it as a newsreader, too.
>>
>> Have you heard of slrn???  When you write a message it uses VIM.
> 
> Nonsense.  It uses what is specified in EDITOR/VISUAL, and if there is
> nothing there, it reverts to "vi".  Which is not the same as "vim".
> For example, on RedHat it is a stripped down version of vim with lots
> less features compiled in than regular "vim".
>