[from Editing MACroS] The ne plus ultra of hacker editors, a
programmable text editor with an entire LISP system inside it. It was
originally written by Richard Stallman in {TECO} under {ITS} at the
MIT AI lab; AI Memo 554 described it as "an advanced,
self-documenting, customizable, extensible real-time display editor".
It has since been reimplemented any number of times, by various
hackers, and versions exist that run under most major operating
systems. Perhaps the most widely used version, also written by
Stallman and now called "{GNU} EMACS" or {GNUMACS}, runs principally
under Unix. (Its close relative XEmacs is the second most popular
version.) It includes facilities to run compilation subprocesses and
send and receive mail or news; many hackers spend up to 80% of their
{tube time} inside it. Other variants include {GOSMACS}, CCA EMACS,
UniPress EMACS, Montgomery EMACS, jove, epsilon, and MicroEMACS.
(Though we use the original all-caps spelling here, it is nowadays
very commonly `Emacs'.) Some EMACS versions running under window
managers iconify as an overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest
the one feature the editor does not (yet) include. Indeed, some
hackers find EMACS too {heavyweight} and {baroque} for their taste,
and expand the name as `Escape Meta Alt Control Shift' to spoof its
heavy reliance on keystrokes decorated with {bucky bits}. Other spoof
expansions include `Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping' (from
when that was a lot of {core}), `Eventually malloc()s All Computer
Storage', and `EMACS Makes A Computer Slow' (see {recursive
acronym}). See also {vi}.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {bring X to its knees}{choke}{copyleft}{demigod}{Dissociated Press}{GNU}{GNUMACS}{GOSMACS}{heavyweight}{holy wars}{hook}{miswart}{NSA line eater}{PostScript}{recursive acronym}{space-cadet keyboard}{TECO}{vi}{WAITS}{WYSIWYG}]