David's World

August 3, 2008

Talk at MPI Cologne: Emacs in Scientific Research

I'm giving a talk at the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research in Cologne on Monday 3 August, 1.30-3pm. Here's the abstract:

Emacs in Scientific Research

Emacs is perhaps the longest-living computer program still in constant use. It is known for its great efficiency of use and its steep learning curve. The support for a wide range of formalisms including statistics systems, typesetting (LaTeX) and programming languages make it a widespread editor for scientific use. GNU Emacs is tightly connected with the history of Free Software.

This talk will introduce researchers to the world of Emacs, discussing the applications of the editor as a development environment in science. After covering the basics of LaTeX editing and the R (SPlus) interface, tricks to support general programming in languages such as Python or C are introduced. A further section will describe simple constructs in Emacs Lisp, a functional programming language that allows users to extend Emacs with macros. The talk is in large parts applicable to GNU Emacs, Aquamacs and XEmacs. The talk is intended to be accessible to an audience with limited programming experience.

Aquamacs is a free software project that has produced a new version of GNU Emacs containing radical changes to the user interface of Emacs. With an approach that is not uncontroversial among Emacs traditionalists, Aquamacs has adapted Emacs to suit Mac users and those used to modern graphical environments in general. The project has made Emacs more accessible to tens of thousands of new uses around the world. The talk will touch on the tensions between the philosophy of free software development, the tradition that comes with a 30 year-old program and the drive to innovate.