" Although their personalities didn't
exactly mesh, Steele and Stallman collaborated long
enough for Steele to get a glimpse of Stallman's
intense coding style. He recalls a notable episode in
the late 1970s when the two programmers banded together
to write the editor's "pretty print" feature.
Originally conceived by Steele, pretty print was
another keystroke-triggerd feature that reformatted
Emacs' source code so that it was both more readable
and took up less space, further bolstering the
program's WYSIWIG qualities. The feature was strategic
enough to attract Stallman's active interest, and it
wasn't long before Steele wrote that he and Stallman
were planning an improved version.
"We sat down one morning," recalls Steele. "I was at
the keyboard, and he was at my elbow," says Steele. "He
was perfectly willing to let me type, but he was also
telling me what to type.
The programming session lasted 10 hours. Throughout
that entire time, Steele says, neither he nor Stallman
took a break or made any small talk.
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