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Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

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Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

#221

Post by iLemming »

keyle wrote: post #92

I like emacs for its flexibility and its ability to be a platform for people to build just about any extension. So for this you'd need a solid scripting language. I was never sold on Lisp but it's fine. I'd prefer to see lua; it just makes more sense. The repo-reference stuff works pretty well all things considered. If it were python it would be hell. Crazy side of me would like to see it fully written in a safe(r) l…

> The config should automatically be a git repository and any change should generate a meaningful commit (thinking out loud).

git-auto-commit-mode exists, try it.

Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

#222

Post by iLemming »

aeonik wrote: post #188

Instead of making it just an elisp interpreter, make it a generic platform where you can interpret any language and have them with together. Make it Programming Language Macros, PLMACS. Kind of life a POSIXs standard. Or the Truffle framework.

> where you can interpret any language and have them with together.

You can have multiple different source blocks in a single Org-mode document. All in different languages, and they can be passing results between one another. e.g., you can run a piece of bash that runs curl, then send the results of it to Python block, where it calculates something, then to Javascript block that uses some npm package and and then send the results to a SQL block that queries a database and generates a report.

Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

#223

Post by iLemming »

skydhash wrote: post #132
floren wrote: post #37

Earlier 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

After years of vim and windows parkour, I started using Emacs, and while the windows management was a bit irritating at first, I made my peace with it and use them in a more focused manner and rely more on the buffer list. I use register if I need a particular configuration. Vim feels like working on a moodboard while Emacs is more a study desk.

> while the windows management was a bit irritating at first

https://youtu.be/1-UIzYPn38s - Emacs: control where buffers are displayed (the 'display-buffer-alist')

Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

#224

Post by iLemming »

musha68k wrote: post #107

Rendering performance is still my main gripe and the one most mentioned by vim users I unsuccessfully tried to convert through evil mode.

I bet you're talking about Mac. I hate coming back to Mac after using Emacs in Linux. It feels so sluggish. Even on my Android tablet Emacs works faster than on a M1 Mac.

Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

#225

Post by iLemming »

dmitrygr wrote: post #20

> If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently? UI: Electron, of course. Json to represent the edit buffer in RAM. Each utf8 code point base64 encoded, in a json array, it itself, as a blob, base64 encoded. Now, before you complain that that is gonna blow up the data too much, don’t forget that 1. “Ram is cheap” and 2. “gzipped base64 is about the same size as binary”. So, of course, we’ll…

Are you sarcastically describing VSCode, I don't get it?

Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

#226

Post by c256 »

az09mugen wrote: post #173
lr0 wrote: post #125

Almost 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.

Someone created lem [0] which is basically an Emacs in Common Lisp. I don't know for concurrency but I hope it is designed to do so. Also there isn't org-mode. [0] : https://github.com/lem-project/lem

There have been several recreations of Emacs in Common Lisp over the years, including Hemlock, CEDAR, and Climacs. They never catch on, because they’re not compatible enough with the existing base of emacs lisp software. This also applies to Scheme, although it did get closer to compatibility once or twice. This is also closely tied to why emacs hasn’t been made much more parallelized - fundamentally, the design of emacs is too close to “a giant ball of global state”, mirroring an early Lisp Machine. It’s a high hill to design around, and it will violate basic assumptions made by most medium-plus interesting elisp code. Do not let this dissuade you from trying! It would be a great if difficult accomplishment!

Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

#227

Post by iLemming »

abe-101 wrote: post #136

I wouldn't. I just used vim

You could use MS Word of Photoshop if you want, we couldn't care less.

We're not talking here about a mere text editor, we're discussing a Lisp machine with level of extensibility and programmability deeply ingrained into its design, something that Vim or Sublime or any other traditional text editor can never achieve.

Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

#228

Post by iLemming »

federicotdn wrote: post #24

I would change the development platform. Doing everything by mail makes things more difficult for people that are not used to the older mail+patch workflow. Having something like GitLab or sourcehut would be nice, as it would also bring a more modern bug tracker. Personally I find following email conversations much harder than just a single conversation thread like in a GitHub issue, for example.

I agree, and I've been observing this for years. It's now becoming a generational problem - younger programmers know and understand PR model, they don't want to deal with mailing threads and patches. These days, young people are like: "You sent me what? an email? Are you joking?" People shouldn't be catering for the comfort of the maintainers, no matter how arguably mailing threads are techologically more superior, it should be the opposite.

Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

#229

Post by iLemming »

peter-m80 wrote: post #15

Not using lisp

- Can you not put any veggies in the salad?

- What? Okay, so fruits, berries?

- No, no, no fruits either.

- Hmm... what about croutons, nuts, maybe sunflower seeds?

- No, just use meat. I like meat. Just make it with a bunch of meat pieces, alright?

- Well, that is not a salad...

> Not using lisp

Don't you folks realize the imbecility of such statements? Emacs is a Lisp machine that allows writing and loading custom extensions based on Lisp! This level of extensibility and programmability is so deeply ingrained into Emacs, specifically because it revolves around Lisp. Emacs wouldn't be possible without Lisp.

Re: Ask HN: If you were rewriting Emacs from scratch, what would you do differently?

#230

Post by iLemming »

sva_ wrote: post #2

Not using Lisp would be helpful

Then it wouldn't be Emacs. You're thinking of whatever, it could be a real nice picture in you head, whatever that you're thinking of, is not Emacs. Something like Emacs is not possible without Lisp.
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