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Toward a “modern” Emacs

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Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#241

Post by klodolph »

Jtsummers wrote: post #108
klodolph wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love something like “Emacs’s Neovim”. Guile should be enough. Keep packages out of the global namespace. Get rid of Elisp and all its differences. Let me use C-Z/X/C/V for undo/cut/copy/paste (or maybe C-Shift-C is fine?) Keep org-mode, web-mode, etc :-)

I don't think we even need Guile (though I wouldn't complain). Just cleaning up the way packages install (a proper package system, which could be optional) would be a vast improvement for elisp. By creating a package system, making everything default into the el-user package if not otherwise specified, and moving the core elisp capabilities to the el/emacs-lisp package (used by el-user, importing everything), you'd c…

Personally, I would love Guile. There are just so many quirks to Elisp, and Scheme is more “known”.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#242

Post by ggm »

As a computer scientist since 1979[1], Emacs and vi both are across my working life. Teco died. The many alternate modal editors, ed aside, mostly were fringe.

I tended to the vi side but I deliberately shifted back to Emacs for org mode and to keep my brain agile. The psychological cost of shifting is contained in "six weeks to relearn a habit" which in a lifetime is acceptable cost.

The outer gui emacs is dead to me: I'm not seeking more mice in my life, if I was i would have gone to Rob Pike's work.

the ascii gui menu bar being disabled now, melpa and elpa giving me just enough, I think Emacs can start chasing finer grained revision numbering. There does not need to be an Emacs 30+.

Vi peaked in nvi from Keith Bostic. Vim is really its own thing now. I prefer nvi.

Emacs had more variants [2] but they died on the vine and now its Emacs, xemacs, and spacemacs for odd people[3].

[1] in Hypothesis: I graduated in 1982 but you learn editor in first year... so...

[2] Gosling did a good one. Small, fast. I used this a lot in 1984. The macro repeat mode did some good stuff without needing lisp. It's because he did this i am charitable about Java.

[3] just choose Emacs or vi for goodness sake!

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#243

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

zarkov99 wrote: post #102
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Emacs for 33 of those 40+ years, and I agree with that until the word "without". You don't mean "modernization". You mean "without it changing". And the answer is yes, it will die out.

What are some of the changes you would want to see?

I don't want to see any changes. There's nothing in emacs that requires any modifications or "modernization" from my perspective. But I'm nearly 57, which is why emacs, like me, will (mostly) die out.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#244

Post by phist_mcgee »

TheGrassyKnoll wrote: post #186
banana_giraffe wrote: post #75

The article makes some interesting points, to me, though, I think the Emacs devs need to have a discussion with themselves if they even want to go here. Here's what I see as an outsider if I'm a Windows users and want to give this great emacs editor I've heard so much about a try: First off, I search for emacs, I land on a page with a Windows link. I click that link, I get a rant about how Windows is evil. Ok, fine,…

But Windows IS evil...

Yeah cool. I guess all the people who write software for Windows based ecosystems are evil too right? Just make them use linux and the world will be candy and smiles.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#245

Post by jorams »

baby wrote: post #157

All of these are missing the point imo. The biggest advantage of modern IDE is the ease in trying new plugins and functionalities. Everything is a menu away, and fuzzy searching makes it easy to find out commands and learn their shortcuts. This whole process just doesn’t exist in emacs. To get a plugin, it’s a huge step (setting up custom elisp to get melpa) and then it’s a huge learning curve just to try a plugin.

I don't really get what you mean. Sure, setting up MELPA is a bit annoying, but after that trying a new package is trivial. You go to the package list and install the package, then you trigger whatever command you need.

I agree that fuzzy search is a great thing though, and I think something similar to Ivy should be included by default.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#246

Post by twblalock »

Emacs needs a package manager that is as easy to use as the one that comes with VS Code.

The plugins are the reason VS Code is popular. It's so, so easy to discover them and install them. You can download VS code and have a working dev environment with autocomplete and a debugger for almost any major programming language in 10 minutes.

When I started working in the tech industry, Textmate was pretty popular. It was supplanted by Sublime Text, which was supplanted by VS Code. Each time, the main factor in getting people to switch was the ease of finding and installing plugins.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#247

Post by twblalock »

auganov wrote: post #17

The biggest threat to Emacs is a number of hard to fix performance issues. Like rendering of very long lines. Luckily for Emacs other editors have their own performance issues, but their architectures might make them more fixable. The other issue is the display model. Rendering using browser technologies enables other editors to do things Emacs just can't. I'm sure some gimmicks might bring in more users. But implici…

Honestly it's the package management that is the problem. VS Code is also kinda slow, yet it's popular because it's so easy to discover and download plugins.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#249

Post by jodrellblank »

fmakunbound wrote: post #112
xrd wrote: post #39

I've been an emacs user for more than 20 years. Is it just me, or is this article completely missing the point? I've switched to VS Code because I can install extensions so easily. Getting a theme installed is not my concern at all. With emacs, I'm still never sure how to get elpa (or why not melpa) to work correctly. And, modern packages for react never seem to be available there anyway. I'm still astounded package…

What’s extending VS Code like compared to Emacs?

Like this: https://code.visualstudio.com/api/get-started/your-first-ext...

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#250

Post by gglitch »

TylerE wrote: post #131
neltnerb wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I still have the .emacs file I inherited from an upperclassman. It had better syntax highlighting than what was built in at the time =)

See, this is what I hate about emacs. It feels like a spring loaded bundle of magic that will explode if I look at it wrong, and, having exploded, I will never ever ever get it put back the way it was.

Don't worry, magit's got your back.
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