An editor with macros is not an editor in modern parlance any more than yanking and killing are copy and paste.
Re:Emacs Is Not Just an Editor
by emodendroket on Sunday March 12, 2023 @09:07PM
(#35129209)
So, in other words, it is? I mean yanking and killing are cut and paste by any reasonable standard.
Apart from the fact you have a kill ring you can edit like any other file sure. In the same vein a car is a tricycle.
What is an editor in "modern parlance" then?
Something that let's you press keys really fast.
So how is an editor with macros not "[s]omething that let's you press keys really fast"?
This is such a flamebait-y throwaway
> [emacs] was designed as an editor with macros (thus the name)
no, that's not true.
emacs was written in the language of another editor, teco, and teco had the macros. So, emacs was written as a new editor written on top of the old editor teco. At that time, emacs was a set of "teco edit macros"
because the authors of emacs were teco users, and macros were so useful to the teco user, yes, a macro facility was also added to emacs for the emacs users, but emacs itself was not intially those macros, it was teco macros.
The second Emacs was written for the Lisp Machine by Daniel Weinreb. There the whole editor was written and extended in the same language (Lisp Machine Lisp) in the same environment. There it did not have a separate macro language.
If anything, the opposite is true: those who try to diminish Emacs point out the absurdity of referring to it as an editor. To them, what has been accomplished through elisp is more of an indicator of a lack of focus or of bloat than it is of Emacs versatility.