51–58 of 58 posts
The big issue with elisp is how alien it is to read code in it with so many parens and the tendency by elisp programmers to inline huge gobs of code in function calls.
> the tendency by elisp programmers to inline huge gobs of code in function calls Observation on point, and ironically it limits the ability for developers to tweak third-party software (what if you want to change some aspect _in the middle_ of the large code gob?)
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> Whenever I open a file of code that is ~2000 lines or more, emacs slows to a crawl. Then there is something wrong with your environment. Emacs has no problems with big files. It can have problems with very long lines, but big files shouldn't slow it down.
That's not true. Emacs has several problems with big files. Though, to be more specifically, built-in minor-modes have them. So it depends on whether you run a bleak vanilla emacs without anything, or a mildly comfortable emacs with at least something like fontlock-mode and stuff. But, 2000 lines are really not that much. Usually problems on my systems start to show at >10k lines.
Not exactly related but with Emacs 27 will be distributed the so-long mode that could toggle minor modes that affect redrawing like "font-lock", "visual-line", "whitespace" when files with long lines are opened: https://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/so-long.git/plain/so-lo...
Emacs is the ultimate example of free software. You really do feel free in emacs, experimenting, tweaking. Free as in breathing, free as in drinking water. Code is such an integral part of life that it is unthinkable that we cannot have control over it. Emacs gives you control, it gives you freedom. I am amazed how Stallman got it right and invented on his principles. Thank you Dr. Stallman, thank you.
rms has a doctorate? Or is this some sort of honorific I've never heard before?
Emacs is the ultimate example of free software. You really do feel free in emacs, experimenting, tweaking. Free as in breathing, free as in drinking water. Code is such an integral part of life that it is unthinkable that we cannot have control over it. Emacs gives you control, it gives you freedom. I am amazed how Stallman got it right and invented on his principles. Thank you Dr. Stallman, thank you.
> Dr. Stallman rms has a doctorate? Or is this some sort of honorific I've never heard before?
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As someone else has mentioned. Maybe the lines are very long. That is a known problem, and some minor solutions have been proposed, but it is an entrenched problem (in the way data structures handle text), and not one that programmers run into at any rate (unless you open those terrible "one-liner" javascript files).
See fooker's reply in this thread. He is using the same setup as I am.
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> you can do a heck of a lot with VS Code extensions, enough that I don’t want to install any I don’t trust —they can run programs and never prompt you for permissions Doesn't Emacs have the same issue - you really really have to trust any package you install?
That is true, probably even more so then VS code. Though I never heard of malicious Emacs package. That may because it is such a small attack vector compared to something like VS code.
That's irrelevant: what matters is the value of an attack vector. e.g. Bill Gates is a small attack vector.
Attack the high value of some developers assets, or attack the high value of some of the businesses they work for.
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It is arguable that no such editor exists. Take away the Lisp and you are already very unlike Emacs.
It's possible to write a language that is arguably a lisp, but without sexprs. Elixir is one that comes to mind (It has the "big" Lisp things, like hygienic macros). Actually, Erlangs concurrency model might well work very well for emacs, since you can spawn off hundreds of independent tasks with close to zero overhead, and use all available cores to run them on.
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That's not true. Emacs has several problems with big files. Though, to be more specifically, built-in minor-modes have them. So it depends on whether you run a bleak vanilla emacs without anything, or a mildly comfortable emacs with at least something like fontlock-mode and stuff. But, 2000 lines are really not that much. Usually problems on my systems start to show at >10k lines.
Syntax high-light pays its tool on not so huge files, but I remember opening without slowdowns files with around 100K lines in text mode (mostly log files). Not exactly related but with Emacs 27 will be distributed the so-long mode that could toggle minor modes that affect redrawing like "font-lock", "visual-line", "whitespace" when files with long lines are opened: https://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/so-long.git/pl…