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Toward a “modern” Emacs

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Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#511

Post by martinflack »

If we want to attract more newcomers, I vote we use video.

The emacs welcome screen should link (and encourage) a youtube playlist (or some video hosted somewhere, if a commercial site is undesirable - or even play right there in the editor) that introduces the editor with, say, a dozen very short introductory videos, well-produced with an enthusiastic voice-over demonstrator. Eventually these can be translated so one can watch in their local language.

The pitch of "it's a musical instrument, you have to first practice and then greatness will come" needs to be in the first video, with the promise that the videos will quickly get to a tour of that greatness. Then cover some beginner basics. Maybe don't mention lisp in the first video.

And then in the following videos, quickly get to magit, org-mode, LSP/slime/cider, yasnippet, and other pizzazz while keeping it practical.

(This probably even exists somewhere?)

Finally, there is a lot of reading material on the welcome screen, but it should include a chat location to get advice from volunteers who don't mind a relentless stream of "how do I copy and paste" introductory questions and will answer them enthusiastically. If it's IRC, that's fine, but it would be best if just clicking in the browser launched an IRC client and took you there, either in-editor or on gnu.org as a web widget or something (like guix has).

I'd also reverse the existing stanzas in the welcome screen: "Emacs Tutorial..." first, "GNU and Freedom..." next, and "Author..." third. It's more practical that way.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#512

Post by marrianeKK »

ashtonkem wrote: post #453
rkangel wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was an avid emacs user for almost a decade and it only 2 a week with VSCode for me to jump ship completely. The issue I had with Emacs is that while could get it to do anything, often it took a lot of time. I would often end up spending an entire afternoon or Sunday tinkering with my config to get set up to develop in a new language. Whe I adopted VSCode it took about 20 minutes - install a plug in, set some config…

I get that, but VS code plugins are generally mediocre at best. If I want a “install plugin and it works” editor, I use IntelliJ, which does a better job at basically everything.

I'm curious as to which plugins you have used to have that impression. My plugin experience with VS Code has been generally great. Far better than any Jetbrains product I've used, I dare say.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#513

Post by CJefferson »

nobody9999 wrote: post #468
CJefferson wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's so easy to switch, and a beginner is more likely to want it on, why not set it on by default and let everyone who wants it off put it in their config?

>If it's so easy to switch, and a beginner is more likely to want it on, why not set it on by default and let everyone who wants it off put it in their config? Why is it important to prioritize beginners over experienced users? I can understand that point of view in the context of a new product, or one that is struggling to make money from an existing product. But last I checked, Emacs is free software, with no impet…

> Why is it important to prioritize beginners over experienced users?

In my opinion, because experienced users know how to configure their editor while beginners don't.

If "every expert" has their own tuned configuration, they really shouldn't care what the defaults are. It is (in my opinion) crazy to have options designed to make a system easier to use, which have to be searched out and turned on.

If Emacs doesn't care about user counts or market share, great. Emacs users can stop posting about it, and it can quietly fade away.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#514

Post by lytefm »

TrisMcC wrote: post #410
trenchgun wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doom emacs is probably the state of the art emacs starter pack now. A lot faster than spacemacs, more stable etc. A rock solid default config made out of Doom emacs might work.

I don't think a starter pack that completely disables the "Customize" interface would be a good candidate for default. https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs/blob/a2a5038b970df20e... "Doom doesn't support `customize' and it never will. It's a clumsy interface" I find the Customize interface very useful.

I'd also say it's a good choice for beginners. Providing one way to configure things and explaining that reasonably well in tutorials and docs is fine. The only downside of Doom Emacs for a beginner like me is the non-standard package manager: Just following some packages docs for configuring isn't enough, it's also required to figure out when to execute that config code.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#515

Post by johnisgood »

oaiey wrote: post #319
oblio wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally known 2 Emacs users in my ~15 years in the industry. I've worked in Europe for various startups and a bunch of corporations. Both of them used it as a sort of hobby/side editor, their main money maker was an IDE (VS, IntelliJ). I've probably worked with 500 developers, if not more. My personal impression is that Emacs is like the Yeti of programming editors. Everybody has heard about it, few claim to…

Same here. 20 years, Europe, corporate and open source projects, zero emacs users. Seen vim, notepad++, sublime, uedit, atom and vscode. And all types of fat ides

Well, one Eastern European Emacs user here. :D

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#516

Post by johnisgood »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #243
zarkov99 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am in my early 20s, not exactly "young" I suppose, but I have been using Emacs since age 11. I think it is fine the way it is.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#517

Post by [deleted] »

saalweachter wrote: post #274
brandonmenc wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Eclipse has had practically two decades of vi/emacs users shitting on it and yet it is still popular enough to warrant an entire conference. https://www.eclipsecon.org/2020

Isn't Eclipse basically the modern Emacs? It's a plugin management system that happens to be shipped with a set of plug-ins targeted at serving as an IDE, written in Java instead of Lisp.

[deleted]

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#518

Post by [deleted] »

alan_n wrote: post #174
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,…

The saddest thing is its easier to just install it from WSL and use something an X server and it runs faster .

[deleted]

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#519

Post by dang »

konjin wrote: post #485
JoshTriplett wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that exact attitude also drives away people who could handle and enjoy Lisp just fine, just not unwelcoming elitism.

Yes, it's a feature, one we should use a lot more of. Someone that thin skinned would demand that the project accommodate them, try to take it over and then run it to the ground. After all it's not like Stallman didn't become homeless because of people like that.

Can you please not do programming flamewars on HN? It's low-quality discussion and it has poisonous effects on the community.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#520

Post by slightwinder »

mapgrep wrote: post #28

I don’t know. I read the whole article and it seems the suggestions boil down to emacs needing to be more “modern” by defaulting to dark mode, making color theming easier, changing right click behavior, the menus, and changing the shortcuts. And the author of the article would like the development process to be more “modern.” Emacs is one of the most successful text editors of all time if not the most successful. It…

> Emacs is one of the most successful text editors of all time if not the most successful.

Define success.

> But I think the bar is much higher than this.

Sometimes it's the small details who have the biggest impact.

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