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Frontmacs

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Re: Frontmacs

#21

Post by cup-of-tea »

I have mixed feelings about emacs starter kits. On the one hand I'm always happy that more people might discover emacs. It's quite simply the most powerful text editor out there. Hands down. I could not imagine using a computer seriously without emacs.

On the other hand, the power of emacs comes from the fact that it's essentially a lisp interpreter which is good at doing text editor stuff. If you abstract this away then what you get is an editor which is implemented in emacs, but is ultimately comparable to any other text editor.

Emacs really shines when you make it your own. And that goes far beyond the usual "customisation" that you see. I have files full of macros that help me write lisp which eventually changes the way the editor works. And some of that functionality helps me write the macros that help me write lisp that (...and so on).

For those that don't use emacs the above might sound bizarre. Maybe it's only attractive to a few programmers. Or maybe you have to try it before you really understand. I don't know. But that's why I have mixed feelings.

Re: Frontmacs

#22

Post by nukeop »

After years of using other people's configs, I found that they never really fit my way of working completely and they're filled with things I don't understand and/or don't use. I think most people will want to use their own configs after a while, and that's one of emacs's greatest strengths. Nowadays we have multiple package repositories and multiple ways of configuring it to suit your tastes.

I also find the description filled with buzzwords and buzz-phrases to the point where it becomes meaningless.

Re: Frontmacs

#23

Post by declanqian »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #21

I have mixed feelings about emacs starter kits. On the one hand I'm always happy that more people might discover emacs. It's quite simply the most powerful text editor out there. Hands down. I could not imagine using a computer seriously without emacs. On the other hand, the power of emacs comes from the fact that it's essentially a lisp interpreter which is good at doing text editor stuff. If you abstract this away…

They treated the whole frontmacs as a package and put it on https://elpa.frontside.io/ , I don't know whether it's good idea. Actually I proposaled the same concept for spacema\ cs, doesn't got approved back then. So this is not a starter kit I guess?

Re: Frontmacs

#24

Post by maaaats »

pdkl95 wrote: post #12

(edit: reposted this comment in their bug tracker) You might want to warn people that this enables auto-saving buffers on many buffer/frame events that are usually considered safe. https://github.com/thefrontside/frontmacs/blob/master/frontm... (defadvice switch-to-buffer (before save-buffer-now activate) (when buffer-file-name (save-buffer))) ; the same defadvice is applied to: ; other-window ; windmove-{up,down,lef…

As a general fileditor, it may be scary, yes. But I have this in IntelliJ and love it. Saving is just a useless keystroke for most of my development time. Things are in VCS, and if not, I can also use local history to roll back.

Re: Frontmacs

#25

Post by cup-of-tea »

hiker wrote: post #6
vog wrote: post #3

Slightly off-topic, but: > Most of the planet doesn't treat editor configuration as software. We do. This is so true! And it applies to many, many other types of configuration as well.

Reminds me of the evolution of Lua https://www.lua.org/history.html from a configuration language to a full blown programming language. Awhile ago, we've used this code as data approach in a game development studio for everything. For example, maps/levels were stored as a Lua scripts that get executed on load and contain a sequence of PlaceObject, SetProperty, etc invocations. It doesn't come without drawbacks, thoug…

Emacs just used a full blown programming language right from the start. And one of the very best: Lisp.

Re: Frontmacs

#26

Post by cup-of-tea »

bhrgunatha wrote: post #15
forvelin wrote: post #2

Some screenshots could be nice, probably most people are not tend to try it out until they see a screenshot. Anyway, I am a simple man. I see people using Emacs and I become happy.

I will (almost certainly) never switch from my current configuration to use any of these all-in-one package bundles, but I do like looking through them for ideas.

Yeah, me too. I also love watching people use emacs. There's always something neat that I haven't seen before. Unfortunately that is a very rare pleasure for me. I've only seen emacs in the wild a few times and mostly they were old professors using it with the standard configuration.

Re: Frontmacs

#28

Post by oblio »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #25
hiker wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the evolution of Lua https://www.lua.org/history.html from a configuration language to a full blown programming language. Awhile ago, we've used this code as data approach in a game development studio for everything. For example, maps/levels were stored as a Lua scripts that get executed on load and contain a sequence of PlaceObject, SetProperty, etc invocations. It doesn't come without drawbacks, thoug…

Emacs just used a full blown programming language right from the start. And one of the very best: Lisp.

> And one of the very best: Lisp.

Got any hard numbers to back up that bold claim?

Re: Frontmacs

#29

Post by cup-of-tea »

oblio wrote: post #28
cup-of-tea wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emacs just used a full blown programming language right from the start. And one of the very best: Lisp.

> And one of the very best: Lisp. Got any hard numbers to back up that bold claim?

I rate it 10/10. What kind of numbers are you expecting exactly?
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