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

[David Kastrup]

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.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

> It happens on xemacs and fsf emacs.  Go try it.  Find the regular
> 8.2 SuSE CDs and install and do it.  Emacs will crash on you too if
> you do the things I described.

It does not crash in that circumstance.  It simply freezes for a long
time unless you interrupt it with C-g.

>> 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.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum