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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?

#71

Post by tom_ »

susam wrote: post #30
smokel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make CapsLock an additional Ctrl. On many old keyboards that is where the Ctrl key was positioned [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caps_Lock#Placement

I know many people like to remap Caps Lock to function as Ctrl. However that setup does not quite work for me. There is only one Caps Lock key on the left side of the keyboard. I need Ctrl on both sides of the keyboard, so that I can use the left Ctrl key while typing Ctrl+P but the right one while typing Ctrl+A. There are other options as well, like remapping the Enter key to act as Ctrl when chorded or using sticky…

I just leave Ctrl where it is and press it with the knuckle of my little finger. I do it just like the guy in the pic on this page, pressing the control key with his little finger: http://xahlee.info/kbd/how_to_press_control_key.html - because that pic is of my hand. (Xah might not recommend doing this all the time, but I've been doing this for nearly 20 years now and I've had no problems.)

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

#72

Post by tazjin »

hollerith wrote: post #70
tazjin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If text in Emacs looked as pretty as text on the web does Do you have an example of this? I can't tell any difference for the fonts that I use (with emacs-pgtk). I believe Emacs uses Harfbuzz (same as Chrom{e|ium}).

Most of the text on the web for example is in a proportional-pitch typeface. Does your Emacs usually use a proportional-pitch typeface? If so and you're on Linux, I'll install the font you are using. I've tried using proportional typefaces in Emacs (on Mac), but there was something off, so I went back to monospaced. I could try again now that I have a Linux machine. The text in my Emacs looks almost exactly like the…

I used to use proportional pitch fonts for telega.el and certain document buffers, but I stopped because I find that with Jetbrains Mono (for me personally) there isn't any benefit even for longer text. I'd rather have everything be uniform.

Emacs is perfectly capable of rendering other fonts, too, though.

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

#73

Post by wging »

musicale wrote: post #50

I 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).

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

#74

Post by hollerith »

tazjin wrote: post #72
hollerith wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the text on the web for example is in a proportional-pitch typeface. Does your Emacs usually use a proportional-pitch typeface? If so and you're on Linux, I'll install the font you are using. I've tried using proportional typefaces in Emacs (on Mac), but there was something off, so I went back to monospaced. I could try again now that I have a Linux machine. The text in my Emacs looks almost exactly like the…

I used to use proportional pitch fonts for telega.el and certain document buffers, but I stopped because I find that with Jetbrains Mono (for me personally) there isn't any benefit even for longer text. I'd rather have everything be uniform. Emacs is perfectly capable of rendering other fonts, too, though.

Yes, I remember now that having everything be uniform was one reason I stopped with the proportional faces in Emacs.

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

#75

Post by musicale »

wging wrote: post #73
musicale wrote: post #50

I 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).

Yep, warm start is the only way to go unfortunately. But I want a fast start from cold boot like classic vi.

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

#78

Post by samatman »

volemo wrote: post #4
sva_ wrote: post #2

Not using Lisp would be helpful

Actually, I love Emacs for its Lisp! Yes, Emacs Lisp is not the best Lisp out there, however, IMHO, it's miles ahead of VimScript. If I were really to rewrite Emacs, I'd use some modern Scheme.

Fennel is a better Lisp than elisp. Neovim is extensible, and to a large degree written in, Lua, which the target language of Fennel.

Most developers do not like writing Lisp. That's just a fact, slamming the downvote button won't change it. I am not among those developers, I like writing Lisp, but most, flatly put, do not.

So by choosing Scheme you are competing with a remarkable number of little-used editors which can be extended in Scheme or Common Lisp, as well as Emacs, far and away the top dog in the extensible-in-Lisp-editor niche. Neovim has achieved the best of both worlds, because it can be extended in a rather nice Lisp, and also in Lua, which, while some find the quirks of the language annoying, is at least Algolic in structure, matching the mode of thinking and writing used by the vast majority of devs.

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

#79

Post by perihelions »

wging wrote: post #73
musicale wrote: post #50

I 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).

I wrap my slow .emacs loads inside #'run-with-idle-timer so they run when I'm not looking, and not likely to notice.
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