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Emacs 25.1 released

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Re: Emacs 25.1 released

#131

Post by [deleted] »

Frondo wrote: post #59
Koshkin wrote: post #16

Having been using emacs on and off, both on Windows and Linux, and having found it being useful on some occasions, I somehow can't help thinking of it as more of a historical artifact than a toolset I would want to use on a daily basis. Being a very powerful personal computing environment and kinda fun to use, to me emacs still falls short in the ways that, for instance, UNIX command line interface with its simple si…

I think that's pretty crummy you're getting downvoted for this kind of remark. I myself tend to agree with you, as a former Emacs user of maybe 10, 15 years. For the things I used to use Emacs for (C, make files, only crude version control integration, etc) I'm sure it'd still do fine. What I found, though, is that my workflow and habits changed, and Emacs couldn't keep up. Or rather, there are good-looking, easy-to-…

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Re: Emacs 25.1 released

#132

Post by Frondo »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #130
Frondo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's pretty crummy you're getting downvoted for this kind of remark. I myself tend to agree with you, as a former Emacs user of maybe 10, 15 years. For the things I used to use Emacs for (C, make files, only crude version control integration, etc) I'm sure it'd still do fine. What I found, though, is that my workflow and habits changed, and Emacs couldn't keep up. Or rather, there are good-looking, easy-to-…

Well, what about when you want to refactor Java, or get syntax highlighting on Scheme code, or want autocompletion in your Python? I'd rather learn one tool once, than re-learn text editing every time my requirements change.

Hey, that's great, I'm glad that works for you. I'd rather pick the best tool for the job, and learn it, than try to make was was for me a mediocre tool less mediocre.

If I were, for example, editing Java at any great amount, I'd probably look to one of those popular Java editors (I've heard good things about, I think it's called, IntelliJ?). I'd wager money it's more finely tuned for working in Java than Emacs will ever be, just because there's people who want to keep making money to write it.

And so on.

Like I said, if I were still just writing code like I used to, in an earlier stage of my career, I'd probably be satisfied with Emacs. I moved on, though, and do different things. When faced with a choice of learning new, good tools and trying to hold onto my old mediocre tools, well, I'll pick the learnin'. I think I've ended up more productive, anyway.

Re: Emacs 25.1 released

#133

Post by hellofunk »

pvinis wrote: post #129
hellofunk wrote: post #69

I used to use Xcode for all my work. Then I had to write Clojure for a couple years, and only used Emacs. When I got back to writing native code, I went back to Xcode and ironically felt like I had slipped into the distant past. So I switched to CLion, the latest bells-and-whistles IDE for C++. But all my custom Emacs code was too powerful an adversary for even CLion and I am back to using Emacs full-time for C and C…

I have been trying to replace Xcode with Emacs, but the biggest problem I don't know how to solve, has been Cocoa/ObjC/clang autocomplete. If I could have that work like Xcode, I could probably switch tomorrow.

I too tried to get autocomplete going in Emacs, and that is the biggest challenge. However, I quickly realized that autocomplete is overrated. I am no less productive without it. In fact, the "snippet" module for Emacs has allowed me to be a lot more productive by generating keystrokes that complete common language idioms for me quickly. In C++, for example, using push_back is very common, and an autocomplete could help with this simple function call, but my snippet goes further and does so more quickly with fewer keystrokes.

Autocomplete even on a major IDE on a fast machine can sometimes still take an extra second to pop up. I can type faster than that, and I can certain snippet a lot faster than that.

Other things like all the different ways to write for loops (the types of iteration) I have snippetized so I can quickly generate the loop I need, which goes much further than autocomplete would.

Re: Emacs 25.1 released

#134

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

Frondo wrote: post #132
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what about when you want to refactor Java, or get syntax highlighting on Scheme code, or want autocompletion in your Python? I'd rather learn one tool once, than re-learn text editing every time my requirements change.

Hey, that's great, I'm glad that works for you. I'd rather pick the best tool for the job, and learn it, than try to make was was for me a mediocre tool less mediocre. If I were, for example, editing Java at any great amount, I'd probably look to one of those popular Java editors (I've heard good things about, I think it's called, IntelliJ?). I'd wager money it's more finely tuned for working in Java than Emacs will…

...And I think the phrase "mediocre" is where we disagree. Java is perhaps the worst example, but there are languages whose emacs modes are simply unbeatable. The lisps, in particular, but there are others. And if the tools aren't good enough, they can be improved.

Give a man an IDE, and he'll have the tools that IDE provides. Give a man Emacs, and he'll have whatever tools he wishes.

OTOH, you may well have ended up more productive for the kind of work you do. Your tools, your choice. I am willing to respect your decision.

Re: Emacs 25.1 released

#135

Post by Koshkin »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #134
Frondo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, that's great, I'm glad that works for you. I'd rather pick the best tool for the job, and learn it, than try to make was was for me a mediocre tool less mediocre. If I were, for example, editing Java at any great amount, I'd probably look to one of those popular Java editors (I've heard good things about, I think it's called, IntelliJ?). I'd wager money it's more finely tuned for working in Java than Emacs will…

...And I think the phrase "mediocre" is where we disagree. Java is perhaps the worst example, but there are languages whose emacs modes are simply unbeatable. The lisps, in particular, but there are others. And if the tools aren't good enough, they can be improved. Give a man an IDE, and he'll have the tools that IDE provides. Give a man Emacs, and he'll have whatever tools he wishes. OTOH, you may well have ended up…

Showing respect for the subjective deserves, well, respect. But it is the insight into the objective that is interesting, and I think that it should be recognized as a law of Nature that if something (or someone, for that matter) is trying to be good at everything, it (or they) is bound to be not very good at anything in particular. I am not seeing, for instance, how emacs can come even close to what IntelliJ has to offer to Java developers - short of having a faithful IntelliJ clone written in elisp, of course.

Re: Emacs 25.1 released

#136

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

Koshkin wrote: post #135
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...And I think the phrase "mediocre" is where we disagree. Java is perhaps the worst example, but there are languages whose emacs modes are simply unbeatable. The lisps, in particular, but there are others. And if the tools aren't good enough, they can be improved. Give a man an IDE, and he'll have the tools that IDE provides. Give a man Emacs, and he'll have whatever tools he wishes. OTOH, you may well have ended up…

Showing respect for the subjective deserves, well, respect. But it is the insight into the objective that is interesting, and I think that it should be recognized as a law of Nature that if something (or someone, for that matter) is trying to be good at everything, it (or they) is bound to be not very good at anything in particular. I am not seeing, for instance, how emacs can come even close to what IntelliJ has to…

Ouch. I did my best... I shall try harder next time.

My point was that while Emacs certainly isn't as capable as IntelliJ is at the moment, It's possible to build those features upon IntelliJ. An attempt to build Emacs's featureset on IntelliJ, OTOH, would crash and burn.

Emacs doesn't try to be good at everything - not in the conventional sense, because Emacs is a platform. There's a lot of software built atop it, but they're all really good at one thing: Paredit isn't Org, which isn't Geiser, which isn't Flycheck, which isn't etags.

Re: Emacs 25.1 released

#137

Post by gnufx »

dleslie wrote: post #24

Emacs being able to load shared/dynamic libraries is huge; it means we'll be able to load so files from a user's home directory, or the standard lib paths, and use foreign functions to extend Emacs. And with XWidgets... Well, now you could write an OpenGL game that uses an OpenAL audio layer and displays in an Emacs frame, all in elisp. Because, why not?

"Why not?" might involve not understanding what that sort of thing is likely to involve. That's not the sort of thing the original version of the feature was intended for, that this appeared to have copied when I last knew, and it didn't make extending Emacs any easier.

Re: Emacs 25.1 released

#138

Post by gnufx »

rurban wrote: post #36
dleslie wrote: post #24

Emacs being able to load shared/dynamic libraries is huge; it means we'll be able to load so files from a user's home directory, or the standard lib paths, and use foreign functions to extend Emacs. And with XWidgets... Well, now you could write an OpenGL game that uses an OpenAL audio layer and displays in an Emacs frame, all in elisp. Because, why not?

Interesting, I wrote such an emacs FFI about 15 years ago, but RMS was fundamentally opposed to it. Gtk-emacs was then based on a smaller scale FFI, but a more generic exposed FFI was still devilish. I wanted to use a proper AutoLISP environment then.

I don't remember any discussion of that 15 years ago, but there's a difference between some sort of general FFI and loadable modules of this sort that rms rejected on Moglen's legal advice. (Disappointingly, as the design was intended to make the copyright situation clear in a legal case.)

I don't know why the 2002 implementation was reimplemented (without credit and apparently without understanding it properly).

Re: Emacs 25.1 released

#139

Post by gnufx »

gkya wrote: post #95
rurban wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I wrote such an emacs FFI about 15 years ago, but RMS was fundamentally opposed to it. Gtk-emacs was then based on a smaller scale FFI, but a more generic exposed FFI was still devilish. I wanted to use a proper AutoLISP environment then.

RMS is no longer a maintainer of GNU Emacs.

And he wasn't 15 years ago. He also didn't provide legal advice.

Re: Emacs 25.1 released

#140

Post by Frondo »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #136
Koshkin wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Showing respect for the subjective deserves, well, respect. But it is the insight into the objective that is interesting, and I think that it should be recognized as a law of Nature that if something (or someone, for that matter) is trying to be good at everything, it (or they) is bound to be not very good at anything in particular. I am not seeing, for instance, how emacs can come even close to what IntelliJ has to…

Ouch. I did my best... I shall try harder next time. My point was that while Emacs certainly isn't as capable as IntelliJ is at the moment, It's possible to build those features upon IntelliJ. An attempt to build Emacs's featureset on IntelliJ, OTOH, would crash and burn. Emacs doesn't try to be good at everything - not in the conventional sense, because Emacs is a platform. There's a lot of software built atop it, b…

FWIW, I've thought this whole exchange was both useful and respectful, even though we obviously disagree. :)

IntelliJ is a good example, because you're right, you could extend Emacs to have a looks-and-works-exactly-like-IntelliJ mode. But now you've got two jobs, writing your Java and developing and polishing up your editor in elisp.

Or, for my current favorite editor, Visual Studio Code, immediately upon launching it you get intellisense via Omnisharp, really decent git integration, all the integration you'd need with dotnet core, and a ton of convenient stuff like search/replace across the whole project, refactoring that works well for C# project, etc.

Could this all be reproduced in elisp? Absolutely, I have no doubt. Has anyone put together a package to do so? Nope, though of course there are disparate packages to solve/simplify/address these things. Will anyone create one package? Nah. Will anyone bring it up to the level of polish that VSC provides out of the box? Definitely not.

Much as I like Emacs, and I really did, when I started trying out new modern editors I felt like I'd been living in a cave.

Actually, just writing this all out has made me realize that the biggest dealbreaker for me is the lack of polish. Seeing what a modern dev experience is like, I couldn't go back.

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