Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Making Emacs Popular Again

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 782 posts

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again

#2

Post by taeric »

Oddly, I think you will make Emacs appealing to users when you start asserting it is appealing to users. Few changes really needed. Just stop intimidating people before they get involved.

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again

#3

Post by striking »

taeric wrote: post #2

Oddly, I think you will make Emacs appealing to users when you start asserting it is appealing to users. Few changes really needed. Just stop intimidating people before they get involved.

To some degree, I agree. I've been playing with Doom Emacs[1] recently and it has been pretty smooth, the configuration and such more so than my regular Vim setup.

1: https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again

#4

Post by jrimbault »

> "Perhaps we should implement a mode that puts cosmetics on Emacs so it will appeal to those who judge by the surface of things."

I'm sorry to react to first quote, but as I kept reading I kept coming back to it. My thoughts on that : how you present yourself is how you want (and are going) to be judged.

In general I think Emacs has been user-hostile, as said here, just by its terminology. Nobody outside a minority of devs (a minority even among programmers) refers to Ctrl+c as C-c.

> Yes, make Emacs appealing and user friendly. But don't forget that a masterful tool in the end requires mastery, which can't come for free.

And the old "I have suffered therefore the others have to suffer".

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again

#5

Post by microcolonel »

jrimbault wrote: post #4

> "Perhaps we should implement a mode that puts cosmetics on Emacs so it will appeal to those who judge by the surface of things." I'm sorry to react to first quote, but as I kept reading I kept coming back to it. My thoughts on that : how you present yourself is how you want (and are going) to be judged. In general I think Emacs has been user-hostile, as said here, just by its terminology. Nobody outside a minority…

> Nobody outside a minority of devs refers to Ctrl+c as C-c.

First, C-c is not Ctrl + c; second, it really helps to use compact notation when you read a lot of keybindings; and third, this is approximately the most minor complication in the learning curve of Emacs (otherwise nobody would learn vim, with its insane key mappings and invisible mode transitions).

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again

#6

Post by _jal »

taeric wrote: post #2

Oddly, I think you will make Emacs appealing to users when you start asserting it is appealing to users. Few changes really needed. Just stop intimidating people before they get involved.

I tend to agree, too. It is really no worse than any other complex application, and far better documented than most.

An an occasional user of both Excel and Emacs (mainly a vi guy), I waste at least as much time figuring out where "that tool" in Excel went or how to get in to one of the weird graph editing modes as I do with the more obscure Emacs features I use sometimes.

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again

#7

Post by jrimbault »

microcolonel wrote: post #5
jrimbault wrote: post #4

> "Perhaps we should implement a mode that puts cosmetics on Emacs so it will appeal to those who judge by the surface of things." I'm sorry to react to first quote, but as I kept reading I kept coming back to it. My thoughts on that : how you present yourself is how you want (and are going) to be judged. In general I think Emacs has been user-hostile, as said here, just by its terminology. Nobody outside a minority…

> Nobody outside a minority of devs refers to Ctrl+c as C-c. First, C-c is not Ctrl + c; second, it really helps to use compact notation when you read a lot of keybindings; and third, this is approximately the most minor complication in the learning curve of Emacs (otherwise nobody would learn vim, with its insane key mappings and invisible mode transitions).

Exactly what I mean. It is insane. I can't get it straight. I really tried years ago. But it is plain and simple stupid.

Words once written don't need to be abbreviated. Abbrevation is only useful when writting for speed. When writting for being read don't use them.

Post reply on HN