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

[David Kastrup]

Mike Cox <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> writes:

> David Kastrup wrote:
>
>> Mike Cox <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> writes:
>> 
>>> David Kastrup wrote:
>>>
>>>> Mike Cox <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> writes:
>>>> 
>>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> I was pressing random keys trying to figure out how to save my
>>> document.
>> 
>> After writing 100 pages of TeX document you try figuring out basic
>> features of an editor.  Why didn't you write the document using
>> "cat"?
>
> I went throught the emacs tutorial that shows the basic commands.  I
> then entered the buffer and started typing.  After I was done, I was
> going to convert everything to TeX.  It was only going to be very
> basic TeX stuff.

100 pages with lots of screen shots.  How do you include screen shots
in a text that is not even written in TeX?

>>> I was looking through the emacs help menu on how to do it (enduring
>>> a lot of computer beeping).  That's when it crashed.  Emacs is a
>>> nightmare to navigate.  Where is the "Save As" button on this
>>> thing???
>> 
>> Try the "File/Save As" menu.  This is not so very uncommon between
>> applications now, is it?
>
> Its kind of hard when the screen is not redrawing itself and xemacs
> isn't responding to any commands.

In which case it would seem somewhat surprising that you can browse
the help system looking for info about how to save a buffer.

At the moment you should be more concerned about saving face, though.
There does not seem to be enough around for all the egg you insist to
be putting on.

>>> The reason I didn't even save in the first place was because emacs
>>> never asked me to create a new document when I started it up.  It
>>> just dumped me in some "buffer".  In VIM you have to specify a
>>> file when you open a document.
>> 
>> Since when?  You end in a scratch buffer if you start without
>> specifying a file on the command line, just like with Emacs/XEmacs,
>> and you end in a buffer for a particular file if you start it with
>> a file name argument, just like Emacs/XEmacs.
>
> Ok now I know this.  Everything else about emacs seems so
> counter-intuitive, especially the "scratch buffer" which is
> supposedly for something called LISP.

Well, then start up Emacs with a file name in the first place.  Just
like you do with vim.

>>> Makes sense, and it works unlike emacs.
>> 
>> It works just the same as with Emacs/XEmacs.  Can't you come up with
>> some lies that are more difficult to refute?
>
> These aren't lies, just my experience trying to use XEmacs.

That vim automagically guesses file names to use and XEmacs doesn't?
Sorry that is a lie.  Without a file name, you get a scratch buffer in
vim, too.

>>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> Well, first off, I don't know how to use TeX.
>> 
>> And you write a 100 page document including screen shots without
>> knowing how to use TeX.
>
> I didn't say I included the screenshots in my document now, did I???

You said that you lost a 100 page document when XEmacs crashed.  And
then you said that the 100 pages were due to screenshots.  If the
screenshots were not in the document, it would be hard to see how they
could have got lost.

> I had them created but they were not in the document, they were in
> my home directory.  I just estimated that each screenshot would take
> about 2 pages, because my monitor is half a page in size.

So you had 50 screen shots prepared to put into your document, and you
managed crashing XEmacs for some reason before writing any of the rest
of your document, so that you lost all 100 pages you had not yet
written.  And XEmacs refused to provide an autosave file with all the
100 pages you had not yet written.  While that is a pity, I must say
that I somehow think you are expecting too much.

> As for the document size, the scratch buffer doesn't show a new page
> like MS Word does, it just keeps the text going and going.

A new page.  When you intent to convert this to TeX.  Wow.

> To me it seemed like a 100 pages.  There was no way to know for sure
> unless I imported it into MS Word or printed it out.  But my best
> guess is that it would end up that size.

Once you put in all the screenshots that weren't there and which you
lost nevertheless.  My condolences.

>>> I was going to do the format after I had everything written out. I
>>> wanted everything typed just in case I couldn't figure out how to
>>> use TeX. I had my screenshots done already and they take about 2
>>> pages each.
>> 
>> And you already included them into your TeX document, though you
>> don't know TeX and have not read one scrap of documentation about
>> either TeX or Emacs.  So that all your 100 pages were lost.  In a
>> manner that all screen shots magically disappeared from your disk.
>> Wow.  Congrats.  You are a real magician.
>
> Read the above.  I still have my screenshots.  Those I could have
> easily recreated if they were lost BTW.  What I did lose was a lot
> of unformatted text that I was going to format using TeX after I had
> it written out.

100 pages of them including screen shots.

>>> So my scratch buffer was quite full of text, I'm not sure if it was
>>> 100 pages, but it sure seemed like it.
>> 
>> You are quite full of it.  I'm not sure if it 100 percent, but it
>> sure seems like it.
>
> I hope I'm clearing it up in this post.  I can see how you could
> have become confused.

It's not that it needed much clearing up, in particular given your
posting history, but you nevertheless manage an impressive job doing
that.

>>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> Try it.  Didn't work for me.
>> 
>> I do this all the time.
>
> What I think you are forgetting is that I'm a NEW emacs user.

And the key combinations work differently for new users?  Hardly.  You
could complain that the info about C-g is hard to find, and about how
to go about reconnecting to a broken connection.  But that's not what
you complained about.  You said that the keys I gave you didn't work.
And that places you from the category of newbie into that of liar.

> Of course you have no problems using emacs, you've been using it
> however many X years.

It does not behave differently to newbies than to experienced users.
Finding out everything will require work, of course.  But lying about
it does not help.

> You are used to it so much that you don't even probably do things
> that *could* break it.

You have no idea how many things in XEmacs and Emacs I managed to
break.  Because I am a programmer.

>>> Try again.  I tried all the key combinations from the emacs
>>> tutorial, C-g included.  I tried this on both xemacs and fsf emacs,
>>> both hung.  You can try it too.  Get SuSE 8.2 and do it using both
>>> xemacs or fsf emacs.
>> 
>> It works.  Simple as that.
>
> That's what Bill Gates says about Windows too.  Doesn't make it true
> now???

I would not say that Windows does not work, all in all.  Just not for
my purposes.  However, C-g works just fine for interrupting access to
a broken connection.  I use it all the time.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum