At 10:20 PM 1/7/00 -0500, der Mouse wrote:
>
>"Unless I'm in some other mode, typing a inserts an a".
>
>Now, let me describe vi.
>
>"Unless I'm not in insert mode, typing a inserts an a".
>
>Run that by me again about how vi counts as modal but emacs doesn't?

Okay okay, point taken. So let's just say that emacs is "less modal" than
vi, since entering text and moving the cursor are the same mode. (BTW, I
don't consider vm and gnus to be modes - I consider them to be applications
written for the emacs-lisp platform ;-)

>Note also that this aside, emacs *does* have modes.  Go and fire up
>emacs.  Don't run gnus or vm or anything like that.  Now type ESC.  Or
>control-X.

I also don't consider that "switching modes". Merely the first key in a
multiple keystroke command. Note that when you press ESC, you don't remain
in "ESC mode" indefinitely.

But that's nitpicking (I say so that you won't remind me of ctrl-S ;-).

>> Also, when I run emacs it has menus at the top.
>
>There is no such single thing "emacs".  The emacs variant you run,
>configured as you have it, has menus - but, for example, the emacs
>variant I use probably could be made to have something menuish, but it
>would be a major pain.  Nobody who's mentioned emacs has specified
>which emacs variant the remark applies to 

Okay - GNU/FSF Emacs 20.3.1 (or later) as installed from pkgsrc, with *no*
user-specific .emacs (or any other local modifications) has menus at the
top of the display. Mind you, I never use them, but they're there.

>(this probably doesn't matter
>in a practical sense, since I don't think anyone has actually
>recommended emacs for inclusion.)

Very definitely not!