If I leapfrog over my generally cold attitude towards Lisp-like languages and my habit of Vim keys, the main problem is Emacs's sluggishness, even if it is natively compiled. Neovim fully packed with plugins, LSPs, settings and etc without lazy loading (!) is so much faster.
Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?
151–160 of 340 posts
Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?
#152I don't care that much about the implementation, but I would like to see an emacs environment with: - instant startup - blazingly fast scrolling - minimal keypress-to-display latency I have written a lot of elisp (and had to deal with with buffer variables, dynamic scope, etc.), but aligning with modern scheme or lisp (if it can be kept compact and efficient) probably makes sense at this point. (Current emacs should…
For instant startup I recommend daemon mode and emacsclient. Start emacs via emacs --daemon, open windows (in the terminal or otherwise) via `emacsclient` / `emacsclient -nc` (I use aliases for these).
The solution to "this text editor takes too long to start up" is poorly addressed by the solution to "just leave it running in the background all the time".
Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?
#153Realize that VI was the superior editor, give up on the endeavor, print out the code I had already written for emacs, shred it, then set the shredder unceremoniously on fire. For those that downvote me, worth it.
> For those that downvote me, worth it.
Nay, quite the opposite; I scrolled down specifically looking for comments like these, because I knew they'd be here. Kind of comforting, really.
Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?
#154Realize that VI was the superior editor, give up on the endeavor, print out the code I had already written for emacs, shred it, then set the shredder unceremoniously on fire. For those that downvote me, worth it.
> For those that downvote me, worth it. Nay, quite the opposite; I scrolled down specifically looking for comments like these, because I knew they'd be here. Kind of comforting, really.
<3
Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
god yes please. "Will I get a new window? If so, where will it be?" If I could have Emacs with Acme-style window management, that'd be perfect
this is emacs territory so we have infinite customization via the `display-buffer` primitive. see https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/demystifying-emacs-wi... for more information.
unfortunately i cannot edit the previous post anymore. another _excellent_ resource is this article/video from "mr protesilaos stavrou" : https://protesilaos.com/codelog/2024-02-08-emacs-window-rule...
he goes by the moniker 'prot' and has tons of very very good emacs information (both on his website, and youtube). always worthwhile to check them out !
as someone would say, if you like that kind of thing, this the is kind of thing you will like :o)
Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?
#156Almost all the comments here are about things that really possible to do in current Emacs i.e. 'feature-requests' and not "fundamental pitfalls of this foundational application". For me, it would be just: - Redesigned with concurrency in mind. - Common Lisp, Scheme, or anything else other than Elisp. [Just the same way Neovim adapted Lua instead of VimScript] - More sane defaults for new users.
Hard agree that these are true ‘fundamental pitfalls’ of Emacs’ design. However I may go further on your third point. I would like to see a dedicated new user/learner mode that in addition to saner defaults would be pretty fully configured and pre-loaded with the most common extensions/plug-ins/etc. This could then lead to development of dedicated documentation/tutorials that assist the new user in becoming proficien…
I’m on the strong opinion that most highly configurable software should come with strongly opinionated defaults. “It’s infinitely configurable so you can do anything you want” is just… so annoying. You could implement an LLM using punchcards if you were mad enough. The thing that makes a tool effective is the fact that it constrains and specializes.
Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?
#157Honestly I think you could go a long way with default evil mode, and updated documentation with evil keybindings in mind.
Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?
#158I'd give it a good editor.
Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?
#159[dead]
Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
For instant startup I recommend daemon mode and emacsclient. Start emacs via emacs --daemon, open windows (in the terminal or otherwise) via `emacsclient` / `emacsclient -nc` (I use aliases for these).
The solution to "this text editor takes too long to start up" is poorly addressed by the solution to "just leave it running in the background all the time".
It really is not poorly addressed, as it's a reasonable solution to the issue which also brings about it's own benefits. If you have your system configured such that the Emacs server starts up when you log in, by the time you actually start Emacs it will long have already loaded completely. If you actually use your Emacs for several things throughout the day, including but not limited to reading and editing text and documents, then it is likely you will have it always running during that time with several files open, and will find it useful to be using Emacs in the same state it was in the last time you opened it.
As an aside, having it running in the background was actually the way the original EMACS that ran on ITS was intended to be used: When you C-x C-c out of it, it does not kill the program, it simply puts it in the background, and the next time you invoke EMACS it brings it back up. This is similar in effect to hitting C-z, then using 'fg' to bring it up again, but this only really works in a terminal. The Emacs server achieves the intended effect better, especially on a graphical display.