Emacs is special regarding UIs • Hacker News Board

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#391

Post by badsectoracula » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #247

msla wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where the shift away from X11 means no more remote applications Plus the death of all non-mainstream window managers, it seems. Realistically, I'm not moving away from X11 if it will create a UI regression for me. This means that unless I can get Window Maker and application forwarding, I'm not moving to Wayland, and I doubt I'm alone in this general feeling, even though other people use different window managers.

Define mainstream. Most tilling wm we all know have a wayland branch now. Some abandonware will probably be lost but nothing prevents anyone from re-implementing them.

He already mentioned Window Maker.

In any case X11 isn't going anywhere even if Xorg developers decide to abandon ship, others will pick it up and continue. It isn't like Xorg was the first and only server, it already the third or fourth fork from the original server.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#392

Post by melbogia » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #237

justaj wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. People keep saying that Emacs can work nice in terminals, but there's a specific bot-macro in the #emacs channel on Freenode: : ,terminal fsbot [->] I heard terminals are [0] Terminals do weird thing to your keyboard input: http://catern.com/posts/terminal_quirks.html fsbot [1] Terminals have limitations compared to the graphical windows; it's advisable to use "graphical" Emacs unless one has a good rea…

Yes, there are many GUI Emacs fans on #emacs, and one of them obviously happened to set up this bot message. But not everyone agrees that GUI Emacs is better. Though terminals definitely have their quirks and limitations, they have some advantages over GUI Emacs. For example, I have my Emacs configuration geared towards terminal use, and use it from within tmux. Because of this I never have to fear losing my Emacs se…

How do you configure tmux such that the keybindings does not conflict with emacs? To use them together, did you change your tmux keybindings, or emacs keybindings, or both? Do you mind sharing your keybindings?

As a long time tmux and vim user, I picked up emacs just so I could use org-mode, and installed evil-mode. I have been using GUI emacs but I'd love to use emacs in tmux. In tmux I had been using C-a as the prefix.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#393

Post by jonfw » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #293

jonfw wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From there it's learning some keystrokes Learning Emacs is VERY clearly not this trivial... to use Emacs to any extent where it's more useful than it's competitors, you have to learn the models it works in, a new programming language- and then there are a LOT of keystrokes

> to use Emacs to any extent where it's more useful than it's competitors, you have to learn the models it works in, a new programming language- and then there are a LOT of keystrokes Let's take these claims one by one: > you have to learn the models it works in I read a book on Emacs and practiced along all within one week. At the end of the week, I was doing more with it than with any of the previous text editors I…

My argument is that modern IDE's are HIGHLY functional out of the box. I'm sure that Emacs can be competitive with Notepad++ in just an hour or two- but without learning the extension ecosystem, some configuration, buffers, and a lot of keybindings- You'd probably be much more productive in VSCode after that hour.

For instance- search and replace. I'm not an IDE user, but I'm sure I could pop open any modern IDE and find and use search and replace in roughly 5 seconds. Emacs- is that discoverable? Or does it require documentation?

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#394

Post by selftest » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

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 took years off from Linux and recently hopped back in. What a convoluted mess it’s all become! I’m currently using a “packaged” version of Arch (arcolinux) and the whole thing is just a hodgepodge of things that might work together but probably don’t. I like to tinker as much as the next person on HN, but editing configs all day truly takes away from doing “real” work.

However, the Mac problem is also annoying... not having $1200+ every two or three years to spend in new hardware is limiting. While it’s true that you can “code on anything”, resource overhead becomes a consideration at some point... which is why I switched back to Linux, but then I’m back at my first complaint.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#395

Post by hpfr » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 7:45 PM UTC

msla wrote: post #242

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…

> where the shift away from X11 means no more remote applications Plus the death of all non-mainstream window managers, it seems. Realistically, I'm not moving away from X11 if it will create a UI regression for me. This means that unless I can get Window Maker and application forwarding, I'm not moving to Wayland, and I doubt I'm alone in this general feeling, even though other people use different window managers.

> Plus the death of all non-mainstream window managers, it seems.

Thanks to wlroots, many new window manager projects are starting, often inspired directly by particular X window managers:

https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots/wiki/Projects-which-use-wl...

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#396

Post by mcguire » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #329

mcguire wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows and MacOS have been (and are) based on the model of buying a copy of a piece of software for each piece of hardware. The idea of only buying a copy for one machine and running it somewhere else is difficult for that model. Ubiquitous networking is common in the Unix world, but much less prevalent in the Microsoft and Apple worlds.

> Windows and MacOS have been (and are) based on the model of buying a copy of a piece of software for each piece of hardware. At least anecdotally, I'm not sure I can find a whole lot of supporting evidence for this -- the vast majority of the commercial applications I use on a daily basis let you install them on any compatible system that you own. This isn't just a byproduct of "well, they're not checking"; it's us…

I haven't used Apple's App Store; is it really true that, say, Ford Motor Company can buy one $9.99 (or $99.99) copy of some useful application and use it on all of the corporate Macs?

Individual use (there's a funny story here) doesn't really matter; what matters is groups, corporations, with tens to tens of thousands of users, and yes, Autodesk is an example (and GitLab (https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/), sort of). Things that make X necessary and useful are typically, something that you absolutely need, that requires custom support and big hardware, but not something that everyone on your staff needs all the time.

Funny story: At one point, a security researcher realized you could run a program through an instruction-level compiler, reordering operations without changing behavior, so that the machine running the program would broadcast RF signals containing the program's license number. It wouldn't really do anything for single machines because the signal was too weak, but if everyone at a company were using the same license for program X, you could drive around the neighborhood with a van and pick that fact up clearly.

Microsoft was completely uninterested. If it would not prevent every individual from pirating even one copy, they didn't care. Which may be why I recently typed in a twenty-odd character string into my new gaming machine.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#397

Post by chipotle_coyote » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 11:56 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #396

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows and MacOS have been (and are) based on the model of buying a copy of a piece of software for each piece of hardware. At least anecdotally, I'm not sure I can find a whole lot of supporting evidence for this -- the vast majority of the commercial applications I use on a daily basis let you install them on any compatible system that you own. This isn't just a byproduct of "well, they're not checking"; it's us…

I haven't used Apple's App Store; is it really true that, say, Ford Motor Company can buy one $9.99 (or $99.99) copy of some useful application and use it on all of the corporate Macs? Individual use (there's a funny story here) doesn't really matter; what matters is groups, corporations, with tens to tens of thousands of users, and yes, Autodesk is an example (and GitLab ( https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/ ), sort o…

> I haven't used Apple's App Store; is it really true that, say, Ford Motor Company can buy one $9.99 (or $99.99) copy of some useful application and use it on all of the corporate Macs?

No. :) I tried to be clear that I was thinking about individual licenses rather than site licenses, but might not have been, and you're absolutely right about corporate site licenses. Apple's App Store is designed for handling individual licenses -- they're tied to Apple accounts, not machines. (With the asterisk that this isn't necessarily true for iOS devices which can be managed by your company, and there's a whole different way of managing those, but companies I've worked for haven't used those.)

I'm not sure I knew Microsoft was still requiring license keys like that for Windows, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#398

Post by chipotle_coyote » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 12:05 AM UTC

hdjdbtbgwjsn wrote: post #387

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows and MacOS have been (and are) based on the model of buying a copy of a piece of software for each piece of hardware. At least anecdotally, I'm not sure I can find a whole lot of supporting evidence for this -- the vast majority of the commercial applications I use on a daily basis let you install them on any compatible system that you own. This isn't just a byproduct of "well, they're not checking"; it's us…

Per seat licences are very standard. Interesting you've never encountered it when e.g. an MS Office 365 subscription is for so many devices (seats).

I have encountered it -- but, the way I read the original post was more about individual usage rather than computer license, e.g., I don't need a license for every computer I have my personal copy of BBEdit installed on, because they're all "my" computers, even including my work computer. And, any computer or device that uses my Apple account can download and use applications purchased on it.

I believe that latter condition is actually true for Microsoft 365 Personal[1], too -- it's tied to your Microsoft account, and the one "seat" you're buying is that user, regardless of the number of devices you have. Business editions tend to be licensed differently.

[1] I know that looks like I got the name wrong, but apparently in April they changed "Office 365" to "Microsoft 365."

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#399

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 12:08 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #375

srtjstjsj wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Projectors don't even have surface area! There's no fixed projection distance.

Projectors are supposed to allow you to disrespect that. You don't use a projector the same way you use a tablet or a desktop monitor. Monitors are not. They have fixed surface area and it's entirely possible to respect that, since modern monitors identify themselves to the OS, so it's relatively trivial to calculate pixel density. This sizing system was designed to be used with paper and PostScript printers respect…

Tell me again what happens when you drag a window across monitors?

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#400

Post by voldacar » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:23 AM UTC

badsectoracula wrote: post #390

pmoriarty wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that extra latency an inherent limitation of how Wayland is designed, or could future optimizations improve Wayland so that its performance is on par with X?

Yes, it is an inherent limitation of Wayland because Wayland assumes a compositor and compositors run asynchronously to the applications that produce graphics (it could be possible to run them synchronously but then a single application could freeze the entire desktop - and even when it worked, you'd force all applications to sync with each other), meaning that what the compositor composes is based on the last comple…

I have a 144hz monitor and I can still notice the extra wayland latency; not so much in regular desktop programs, but in fast-twitch shooters like quake. And this is compared to X11 with a compositing WM. So I'm not sure if that's it.

I'm hardly a Wayland expert though, I was just commenting regarding my own anecdotal experience.