Buttery smooth Emacs (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Buttery smooth Emacs (2016)

#41

Post by benj111 » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

xte wrote: post #38

benj111 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to parse your first paragraph. Isn't Unix entirely about modularity? And I suppose you could argue that emacs is a (os like) substrate that enables modularity on top of it. Theres an old joke, emacs is a nice OS, only lacking a decent text editor. Or are you referring to the actual code itself?

Sorry for my English, I'll try to be clear... > Isn't Unix entirely about modularity? No, unix goal is to provide a minimal "platform" that third party software may use as a "detached" base and interoperate via a simple, small and common IPC mechanism. Unix is essentially like a wagon to support any kind of boxes/pallets. LispM, Alto workstations, ITS, Emacs do the opposite: the OS must not be for them a platform wit…

I think what you're saying is, is that modularity at the level of the library is what succeeded? Rather than at the process /syscall level, or in process level.

To borrow your analogy. Pallet/shipping containers are modular(they won). Individual boxes and container ships, less so.

I can get behind that. I'm not sure that's the absolute best way.

Although as I write this, I'm reminded of the web browser I'm writing it in. Is it not more emacs than emacs?

Re: Buttery smooth Emacs (2016)

#42

Post by TickleSteve » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

anthk wrote: post #21

pietrasagh wrote: post #15

I use emacs and vim quite rarely, only when I see potential benefit of it. Both have some amazing features but also seems to be locked in stone age on IT. In my opinion this is most deterring for new user - not "steep learning curve". I wonder why they refuse to open their eyes to current (or at least 2000's) state of technology. They cling to ancient foundation of their programs as something unmovable and unchangeab…

I don't care about reality. I don't use Emacs today, (I use nvi), but I had a lot of respect of what could I do with few MB of RAM compared to monstrosities today such as Atom, Slack and Sublime Text.

SublimeText is not a heavy monstrosity at all, its really very lightweight. Certainly not in the category as Electron based apps.

Re: Buttery smooth Emacs (2016)

#43

Post by snazz » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

anthk wrote: post #22

pietrasagh wrote: post #15

I use emacs and vim quite rarely, only when I see potential benefit of it. Both have some amazing features but also seems to be locked in stone age on IT. In my opinion this is most deterring for new user - not "steep learning curve". I wonder why they refuse to open their eyes to current (or at least 2000's) state of technology. They cling to ancient foundation of their programs as something unmovable and unchangeab…

Funny enough Emacspeak for the blind totally owns any new GUI technology. They can do everything from inside: IM, web, news, coding, playing music, reading ebooks, MUD's, check the mainstream news... https://tvraman.github.io/emacspeak/applications.html Your reality and bullshit applications such as Electron based bloatwares are a bad joke against disabled people.

They are also a bad joke against those of us who have underpowered or older machines. I love my 2006 MacBook (with OpenBSD) and I sure won't be running Electron on there even if it supported the OS. Emacs is wonderfully fast.

Re: Buttery smooth Emacs (2016)

#44

Post by xte » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #41

xte wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for my English, I'll try to be clear... > Isn't Unix entirely about modularity? No, unix goal is to provide a minimal "platform" that third party software may use as a "detached" base and interoperate via a simple, small and common IPC mechanism. Unix is essentially like a wagon to support any kind of boxes/pallets. LispM, Alto workstations, ITS, Emacs do the opposite: the OS must not be for them a platform wit…

I think what you're saying is, is that modularity at the level of the library is what succeeded? Rather than at the process /syscall level, or in process level. To borrow your analogy. Pallet/shipping containers are modular(they won). Individual boxes and container ships, less so. I can get behind that. I'm not sure that's the absolute best way. Although as I write this, I'm reminded of the web browser I'm writing it…

Hum no, being "platform" for independent communicating software succeed at first (unix), after reach it's limit and it now appear clear that ancient idea pre/against unix of "fully integrated environment" in witch "programs" are only a module/code inside the "big" environment/framework succeed, unfortunately only partially because complexity it's too high to evolve it properly at "modern speed"...

So we do not have now nothing that can really work at a scale only various horrid, hard to maintain and future-less hybrid solutions like Windows, GNU/Linux, AiX, HP_UX, True64, ... ...

On today's web no it't certainly nothing like Emacs. In Emacs YOU have the full control of your environment, in modern web you only think to have a certain control but in the reality you are a powerless puppet of few giants companies...

The sole similarity is the concept of hypertext itself that offer a kind of integration similar to Emacs one, but it's similar at a very superficial level because in Emacs it's integrated anything, not only the presentation level. In Emacs you can modify your software at runtime during normal use, not only link/integrate any text around your documents :-)

Re: Buttery smooth Emacs (2016)

#45

Post by bitwize » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:31 PM UTC

snazz wrote: post #43

anthk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny enough Emacspeak for the blind totally owns any new GUI technology. They can do everything from inside: IM, web, news, coding, playing music, reading ebooks, MUD's, check the mainstream news... https://tvraman.github.io/emacspeak/applications.html Your reality and bullshit applications such as Electron based bloatwares are a bad joke against disabled people.

They are also a bad joke against those of us who have underpowered or older machines. I love my 2006 MacBook (with OpenBSD) and I sure won't be running Electron on there even if it supported the OS. Emacs is wonderfully fast.

It's hilarious that "Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping" is considered light and fast by today's standards.

Re: Buttery smooth Emacs (2016)

#46

Post by dilap » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

kkylin wrote: post #8

Last time this showed up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12830206 And for anyone else using Emacs on a Mac: 1. I use the plain vanilla GNU Emacs from here: https://emacsformacosx.com/ . It does flicker from time to time, but it doesn't bother me. 2. Some Mac users seem to prefer this: https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForMacOS It's supposed to be flicker-free, among other things, but doesn't play well with M…

Second vote for emacs-mac here. It's really good.

Re: Buttery smooth Emacs (2016)

#47

Post by bitwize » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:33 PM UTC

Asooka wrote: post #32

pietrasagh wrote: post #15

I use emacs and vim quite rarely, only when I see potential benefit of it. Both have some amazing features but also seems to be locked in stone age on IT. In my opinion this is most deterring for new user - not "steep learning curve". I wonder why they refuse to open their eyes to current (or at least 2000's) state of technology. They cling to ancient foundation of their programs as something unmovable and unchangeab…

I would also like to know what exactly you mean. I've heard similar rants before and usually it boils down to 1) non-standard shortcuts, i.e. not implementing CUA; 2) being built around a terminal rather than designed around the capabilities of a raster display and a mouse. Emacs might actually get away with switching to CUA, it's already halfway there - you're always in "insert mode" and use Ctrl/Alt+letter for adva…

M-x cua-mode

Re: Buttery smooth Emacs (2016)

#48

Post by bitwize » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

xte wrote: post #39

bitwize wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emacs on Termux with Hacker's Keyboard is pretty usable. I've written (small amounts of) code with it; for Org note taking it will be fine, if not ideal.

I tried it and give up, simply I slow to a point of feel frustration and hacker's keyboard is not comfortable for the rest of the phone usage. Consider that on desktop I live in Emacs, I live with a keyboard (and struggle to find one modern that can really properly replace my ancient Sun type 6 with backlit as a bonus...). My Android usage is simply: - GPS when I travel - mobile quick mail surveillance, not for writi…

Sounds like you have issues with touch keyboards in general. Understandable. Smartphone UIs are in general fucking terrible compared to the keyboard+mouse interfaces, which is why most people still use PCs to do real work.

I've found that using Hacker's Keyboard conforms my muscle memory and lets me use a touch keyboard faster than I would otherwise be able to. It seems not everybody benefits from this.

Re: Buttery smooth Emacs (2016)

#49

Post by agumonkey » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 3:07 PM UTC

xte wrote: post #24

IMO any "old enough" and complex enough software suffer some kind of "age&complexity" problems... No matter how you design it, unix choose simplicity and we see that today no real unix exists anymore (yes, they do exists per name, but in fact they do not follow unix principles), ITS, Emacs, LispM, Alto, ... choose integration and completeness and except Emacs they are essentially dead... Modern software try to choose…

if you read emacs/lisp mailing list, people were already crying about the vast difference in capabilities, ergonomics, ease of use.. saying that emacs was really really below what lisp machines editor would offer. Not even talking about the near fully reflective OS.

Can't find the newsgroup url yet. But still it seems that we are far from peak even 30 years after these systems died.

There's a smalltalk/pharo mooc online, it was also pretty telling how a single system can offer cohesiveness and peace of mind. I'm not extremist against unix way of things but it's a duty to try other systems (maybe oberon, or even amiga os) to see what can be done differently. Otherwise we live in a local optimum blur.

Re: Buttery smooth Emacs (2016)

#50

Post by xte » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #48

xte wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried it and give up, simply I slow to a point of feel frustration and hacker's keyboard is not comfortable for the rest of the phone usage. Consider that on desktop I live in Emacs, I live with a keyboard (and struggle to find one modern that can really properly replace my ancient Sun type 6 with backlit as a bonus...). My Android usage is simply: - GPS when I travel - mobile quick mail surveillance, not for writi…

Sounds like you have issues with touch keyboards in general. Understandable. Smartphone UIs are in general fucking terrible compared to the keyboard+mouse interfaces, which is why most people still use PCs to do real work. I've found that using Hacker's Keyboard conforms my muscle memory and lets me use a touch keyboard faster than I would otherwise be able to. It seems not everybody benefits from this.

Well... Hacker's Keyboard do make Termux usable, other keyboard completely fail, so I like it, I prize it but... It's like to say "jump from a mountain naked is really bad, jump with two open umbrellas, dressed with some kind of life-support inflated jacket and trying to fall in a lake instead on rocks is better"...

When you say "most people still use PCs" like PCs was an obsolete thing makes me shiver. For me desktops are the center of our digital life and mobile crap are only an experiment to make anybody slave of few services that's somehow succeed but it's of course doomed to fails like "netbooks" in the past.