Outside of the text editor, I think native emacs keybindings like (C-n, C-p, C-a, C-e, C-k) on OSX are great and I hope they never get rid of them.
Making Emacs Popular Again
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Re: Making Emacs Popular Again
#12If they could make some kind of a visual layer that makes it look like Word and Photoshop (not in the same time, I'm being realistic here), their name would be remembered in eternity.
Of course, emulating the shortcuts & functionality of Word and Photoshop shouldn't be considered a problem, we are talking Emacs here after all...
Re: Making Emacs Popular Again
#13There is a human aspect to software, and when you forget that, and try to force people to adapt to software instead of adapting software to people, you come up with software that naturally is difficult and unpleasant for people to use.
Emacs is built on a philosophy of human nature that deemphasizes the subjective personal experience in favor of (a limited group of people’s theory of) the objective ideal experience.
In a short amount of time, VSCode and it’s ecosystem has almost equally matched what Emacs and its ecosystem took 30+ years to create.
Re: Making Emacs Popular Again
#14Oddly, 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.
My experience with Emacs has been a steady upward trajectory, gaining understanding and access to functionality. I now use CIDER and TRAMP every working day, and no true equivalent exists for any other editor (though many are catching up to CIDER, due to Clojure being the better lisp!).
The biggest problems with Emacs, to me, are the rendering performance, the lack of sufficient threading, the default keyboard-accessible windowing commands, and Elisp being unergonomic and sad.
The course I'd chart for an ideal Emacs would be rendering with something like Alacritty†, some default windowing commands similar to tmux, and phasing out Elisp in favour of a Clojure dialect; the last bit would help a lot with introducing some basic sources of concurrency.
† Plus smooth scrolling surfaces, since a text editor generally does not have enough surfaces that the memory overhead of tiled surfaces is a serious issue like it is for general-purpose renderers like web browsers.
Re: Making Emacs Popular Again
#15Oddly, 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 like to tell the story of how secretaries in the 70s learned how to use and customize Multics Emacs with Emacs Lisp; they were told they were simply customizing their editor, not programming it.
Re: Making Emacs Popular Again
#16> "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).
What is C-c? I have never used emacs so these comments are very confusing.
Re: Making Emacs Popular Again
#17If they could make some kind of a visual layer that makes it look like Word and Photoshop (not in the same time, I'm being realistic here), their name would be remembered in eternity. Of course, emulating the shortcuts & functionality of Word and Photoshop shouldn't be considered a problem, we are talking Emacs here after all...
A closer example might be autocad (at least older versions). You could do everything with a mouse, but a true expert could type the plans for a building faster than you can imagine.
Re: Making Emacs Popular Again
#18> "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…
> And the old "I have suffered therefore the others have to suffer".
Actually, its an extremely important point. Tools which optimise for the professional are better than those which do so for the noob. Whenever you can achieve both, do so, but never side with the beginner otherwise. People should learn their tools, and they shouldn't be beginners for long, so making things "friendly" at the cost of rewarding expertise is poor design.
Re: Making Emacs Popular Again
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> 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.
No, you're just being ignorant, and not reading when people try to answer your questions.
> Abbreviation is only useful when writing for speed. When writing for reading, don't use them.
It's not an abbreviation, it's a different symbol. C is not Ctrl.
The software has some “baggage”, being the heir to a 40+ year legacy, but the problems you're ragging on are so shallow that it just tells me you never tried. Why would anyone want to continue holding the hand of somebody who isn't even trying?
Emacs is full of excellent documentation, the first thing it tells you when you open it is how to find the documentation, and if you have a mouse you can just click it; if you opened it and decided not to read the intro, but somehow a lot of other people are using it productively, maybe the main problem lies with you.
If you're looking for a piece of software that'll give you some sort of religious aesthetic orgasm just looking at it; sure, you'll be let down. If you were trying to get something done and approaching it honestly, these would not be your complaints about Emacs; trust me that there's a lot wrong with it. Having its own slightly different keybinding notation is like... number five thousand on the long list of actual issues with any honest attempt to be productive with Emacs.
Re: Making Emacs Popular Again
#20Outside of the text editor, I think native emacs keybindings like (C-n, C-p, C-a, C-e, C-k) on OSX are great and I hope they never get rid of them.
I agree! You know what takes it to the next level? Sticky keys!
Accessibility feature in macos where modal / control keys will "stick" for the next keypress (non-modal / control) and then release.
Double tap will stick it for the duration until the next tap on the same key.
Essentialy, double tap control key and move around with n and p keys, kill with k, move more, yank somewhere else with y. All without touching control! But there's more, you can save the buffer with x followed by s press. It takes a while to get used to but saves you awkward wrist moves. I guess it's closer to modal editing in vi, just not as advanced.