Though just a cygwin user, I use emacs extensively. I would like to say that I agree with cfg's ideas to make a test package and let it have a try out. I'm willing to do so. From a strictly user's viewpoint, emacs should behave the same, only faster and consume less resources if they don't have to load X11 packages as well, I would venture.
On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 8:16 PM, Daniel Colascione <dan...@dancol.org> wrote: > On 10/9/12 7:45 PM, Ken Brown wrote: >> [Redirecting from cygwin to cygwin-apps.] > > I sent it to the Cygwin list because the last Emacs thread --- the one > about mouse support --- was on that list. I thought -apps was for > release management and such, not general discussion. Apologies. > >> It would be easy enough for me to do, assuming it builds without a >> problem. But I have a couple of qualms about it: >> >> 1. This strikes me as going against the spirit of Cygwin, which tries >> to emulate Linux. Why shouldn't users who want a GUI version of emacs >> just use emacs-X11, as they would on Linux? > > If I wanted to emulate Linux, I'd run VirtualBox. The entire point of > using Cygwin is to *integrate*, to the greatest extent possible, tools > from POSIXland into Windows. Making that integration work better has > been a common theme of everything I've done --- winln, injob, assorted > other things (including a readline-based PowerShell host), and now > cygw32 Emacs. I don't think the goal of Cygwin should be to become > reincarnated POSIX subsystem that, although it might run on the same > kernel as the Win32 GUI stuff, can't interact with regular Windows > applications. > >> We don't provide Win32 versions of other X11 programs as far as I know. > > That's true, but only because most programs don't have a Win32 mode > that works under Cygwin. There's also precedent in mintty, which we > provide so that users don't have to run an X11 terminal emulator or > use the deplorable built-in Windows conhost. > >> 2. Because there is so much Windows-specific code in it, I wouldn't >> feel competent to support it if users have problems. I'm not at all >> familiar with that kind of programming. > > The vast majority of the GUI code is identical to the NT-native Emacs > port, which has a large userbase and which is well-supported. The > Cygwin underpinnings are identical to the ones in regular Cygwin > Emacs. I'll support the little bit of glue that sits between them. If > I get hit by a bus, just yank the cygw32 port, and we'll be no worse > off than we were before. >
