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Emacs is special regarding UIs

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Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#61

Post by hdjdbtbgwjsn »

rusk wrote: post #42
dheera wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the new Chrome filesystem API it should be possible to make a full browser implementation. Let's just hope they don't have annoying GDPR and other popups when you're trying to edit a file.

You shouldn't even have to need filesystem API if you're just using it as an emacs client connecting to an emacs server. Your remark about GDPR is kind of strange ... not sure what that would have to do with anything ... GDPR applies to people and organisations, not their tools.

Some people really hate GDPR. It has crushed the AdTech industry in Europe - I'm not sad about that but I do hope those people found other employment fast.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#62

Post by hpfr »

jwr wrote: post #11

One begins to understand the advantages of this approach after 10-15 years or so. I feel that I am constantly being forced into new "UI paradigms", and it isn't always a change for the better. I started with DOS (Norton Commander, anyone? to this day there is no comparable tool), then Windows 3.0 and 3.1 (which was mostly garbage and I did not enjoy the UI at all). I then started using Linux and discovered Emacs. Whe…

The shift away from X11 means no more forwarding X11 applications over ssh, which is slow at best and buggy and insecure at worst. A small price to pay for eliminating tearing and actually-secure screen locking. There are valid criticisms of the move to Wayland but I don’t really think this is one of them; if you really need remote access to graphical applications you almost certainly should not be using X forwarding.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#63

Post by wiredfool »

globular-toast wrote: post #6
melling wrote: post #3

Emacs Lisp is slow. There has been a multi-decade effort to make Guile support ELisp, and using Guile to make Emacs more performant. Cross platform UI, with a faster Lisp, would allow Emacs to be even more special.

Yes... but it's not that slow. In practice, emacs works at least as fast as I can think most of the time. This is the most important thing for me. It's the reason why I originally switched to git from svn (Linus also specifically mentions this as a design choice for git). In this day with electron and editors like VSCode I wouldn't call emacs particularly slow.

I’m not sure about the others, but rjsx mode is slow with moderately complicated files, and the (idr which) accompanying refactor minor mode is glacial on a mbp.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#64

Post by submeta »

agumonkey wrote: post #60
submeta wrote: post #59

Emacs + org has the potential to be the dream environment for everybody with a hacker mindset: Automate everything that has to do with text: Journaling, writing todo lists, parsing your Kindle highlights file (`My Clippings.txt'), writing project outlines, doing web research and saving your searches, notes, thoughts, summaries in Emacs via org-capture, drafting papers in org-mode, creating (text-based) tables and ove…

I hate org. I use emacs 25/7, I hate org. Something about it rubs me the wrong way, yet I use it but only the basic parts. I think it's that I can't wrap my head around the mental model of it, and since it encompasses 2000 topics (trees, timing, workflow, states, agenda, journaling, tagging) it's like a mountain of mud before my eyes.

I started using it as an outliner. Then I added org-agenda to it, and migrated all my tasks from Things3 to it. Next I added repeated tasks, then org-habits, org-journal and some more. Incrementally.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#65

Post by ormindo »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #45

Emacs and org-mode is frequently mentioned on HN as being awesome, but I don't feel like I could ever switch; I've got enough issues with vim already. For one, all the keyboard shortcuts and commands that you have to learn; I don't know if I have the capacity to learn all that anymore, not without deliberate practice, while in modern editors you can get by with keyboard + mouse and slowly learn some new shortcuts her…

For keybinds / setup time, I'd recommend either Spacemacs or Doom emacs. Spacemacs especially is meant to be quite newcomer friendly, with things like windows telling you "you pressed this key, here are the other keys you can press to complete the keybind sequence, and here's what they will do".

As for full fledged IDEs, no, I don't think Emacs can pretend to replace those, but you can still make the Emacs experience comfier. Linting is pretty good on Emacs with things like flycheck (& flyspell for spelling in say comments or commit changelogs).

For kernel C development I have a simple flycheck module that compiles the edited file and inlines all warnings / errors as lints. I also have another one for checkpatch (extra script you're meant to run before sending your commits to the mailing list); as a result I never have to look at any other window than the one where there is code in it.

For Python, pylint is supported out of the box by flycheck. Auto-completion is supposed to be feasible, but I had some issues with it and gave up - never felt like I really needed for what I do in Python anyway.

Fast navigation can be done with the usual cscope / gtags. More recently, I've been converted to using ripgrep for most searches (https://stegosaurusdormant.com/emacs-ripgrep/) as it is crazy fast. You can also directly edit the matches and commit the changes, which serves as a project-wide "search and replace".

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#66

Post by pjmlp »

code-faster wrote: post #16

unix is also User Interface Independent, but unlike emacs, it's actually used on a wide variety of interfaces: Mainframes, microcontrollers, web servers, phones (touch screen) and PCs.

It is also the reason why the only desktop based UNIXes that achieved any commercial success have full stack frameworks that make their UNIX underpinnings irrelevant.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#67

Post by akho »

swiley wrote: post #54
jwr wrote: post #11

One begins to understand the advantages of this approach after 10-15 years or so. I feel that I am constantly being forced into new "UI paradigms", and it isn't always a change for the better. I started with DOS (Norton Commander, anyone? to this day there is no comparable tool), then Windows 3.0 and 3.1 (which was mostly garbage and I did not enjoy the UI at all). I then started using Linux and discovered Emacs. Whe…

I really honestly don’t like X11. I’ve poked around in the source a couple times and it confuses and scares me. I love the idea of moving entirely to just one graphics API and keeping the server simple. Until wayland has decent performance though I don’t think I’ll ever switch. None of the apps I use are native (except possibly Firefox and some EDA tools but only if gtk is set up right?) I thought my new phone would…

Network transparency has grown a lot more important for me over the last few years. It’s not really network transparency, though, it’s more vm/container transparency: if your dev environment is in a vm, and includes anything graphical, you need it. With WSL wayland is not even an option.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#68

Post by foobarian »

Symbiote wrote: post #48
WanderPanda wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is idiotic about the Touchbar that is not idiodic about function keys? You have to look at your keyboard to hit the function keys, why not use the glance for a visual feedback loop?

On any reasonable keyboard, the function keys are in groups of four (F1-F2-F3-F4 F5-F6-F7-F8 F9-F10-F11-F12), or sometimes three. It's not necessary to look to see where the keys are.

I wish the external Mac keyboard had grouped function keys. I wish I didn't have to use an external keyboard in the first place, but touchbar is even worse. In my case debugging stuff becomes annoying with ungrouped keys because it's easy to mix up step into / step over / continue.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#69

Post by rusk »

hdjdbtbgwjsn wrote: post #61
rusk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't even have to need filesystem API if you're just using it as an emacs client connecting to an emacs server. Your remark about GDPR is kind of strange ... not sure what that would have to do with anything ... GDPR applies to people and organisations, not their tools.

Some people really hate GDPR. It has crushed the AdTech industry in Europe - I'm not sad about that but I do hope those people found other employment fast.

There was a thriving industry harvesting and processing personal details about people. I think if the true extent of it were known most people would warmly embrace GDPR. But some people have lost a lot of money and they are pissed, but again I kind of feel there is a lot unscrupulousness involved so it's hard to feel sympathy.

To a lesser extent, there are people that are concerned about "all the extra work" this entails, and the cost it adds to their bottom line. But this stuff is important nowadays. You really should be taking care of it.

There is some scaremongering about small firms being blown out of the water for noncompliance, but really, unless you're doing something you shouldn't be doing you should be fine. The terms of GDPR though still not completely clearly specified are flexible and reasonable. The main thing is now, that you can't say you weren't aware of it.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#70

Post by hpfr »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #45

Emacs and org-mode is frequently mentioned on HN as being awesome, but I don't feel like I could ever switch; I've got enough issues with vim already. For one, all the keyboard shortcuts and commands that you have to learn; I don't know if I have the capacity to learn all that anymore, not without deliberate practice, while in modern editors you can get by with keyboard + mouse and slowly learn some new shortcuts her…

I feel like it’s pretty safe to say https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs mostly solves of these concerns for Vim users in 2020. If you really can’t spend any time learning a few help keys then I guess I can’t recommend anything, but you’re here commenting so I bet you have some time :).

Seriously, check out Doom, whether you use neovim, Emacs, VS Code, or nano (Doom has quite good Emacs and CUA bindings as well). It’s brilliant to the point where I’d describe it as Emacs with sane defaults. I guess it probably can’t match the more niche IDE features but LSP and friends are bridging most of the gaps.

You can finally safely ignore claims that beginners should roll their own emacs configs thanks to Doom. That strategy is good for learning if you’re used to diving into unfamiliar systems but you can learn just as much by starting with Doom and working your way inward anyway. The community is great, just like the larger emacs community.

I can’t stress Doom enough; it gets better often not by the day but by the hour. Henrik is a machine.

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