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Toward a “modern” Emacs

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Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#521

Post by slightwinder »

stingraycharles wrote: post #403
School-Cotton wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if new people use it or if it looks modern? It’s working well for the people who want it. Not every piece of software has to be everything to everyone.

It’s not that black and white. A simple hint when installing or downloading, “hey did you know that there are these starter packs?” would already do wonders. It’s not that people are suggesting emacs tries to be everything to everyone; heck, by pure virtue of its extensibility, emacs is actually the one editor that could potentially be everything to everyone. But a simple startup screen, “hey, it looks like this is y…

> A simple hint when installing or downloading, “hey did you know that there are these starter packs?” would already do wonders.

Automating the Starter-Pack-Installation at virgin start and adding one or two out of the box would be better. Many people are not downloading emacs directly. On Linux you go through your destribution.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#522

Post by slightwinder »

jrimbault wrote: post #88
Miraste wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is widely used for a staggering array of tasks. Is it? What area are you in? In my hobbyist, college, and industry experience I've never seen anyone use emacs for anything. I have seen Vim (or at least vim bindings) a few times, but I only know of emacs from older unix discussions online. Edit: Looking through stack overflow developer surveys, emacs use is in 16th place for editor popularity at ~4.5% usage, but…

Just to add links to the SO surveys mentionned here : - 2019: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#development-e... - 2018: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018#development-e... - 2017: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#technology-_-... - 2016: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2016#technology-de... - 2015: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015#tech-editor What's real…

VS Code is pretty much the proof that a modern Interface and beginner-friendly customization is the secret of success even for editors. Of course only additional to a solid foundation in terms of ability.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#523

Post by slightwinder »

dmix wrote: post #314
ashtonkem wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remain utterly perplexed by the popularity of VS Code, to me it basically does nothing well, but does a bunch of things mediocrely.

It’s surprisingly easy to grind performance to a halt in VSCode using the extensions (even on a modern machine of course) much like using a browser with extensions (but worse). That said the only reason I use VSCode instead of Vin is when I program in Typescript because the support is outstanding, always cutting edge, and super easy to set up. Code is ideal for frontend js programming in general with lower investment…

> It’s surprisingly easy to grind performance to a halt in VSCode using the extensions (even on a modern machine of course) much like using a browser with extensions (but worse).

The same is true for emacs, or vim or any other extendable editor. Poor code behaves bad everywhere.

But the real surprise is, VS Code usual performance is equal or better than emacs even with an average setup which is still a tad more powerful than whatever emacs offers on a good setup.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#524

Post by slightwinder »

wtetzner wrote: post #45
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…

You don’t even need to fork it. Just have write a .emacs file that new users can copy to their home directory that sets all of that stuff up.

No, there are certain features and terms in Emacs which makes it very alien to the modern world. Things like the cursor being limited to the visable part of the buffer, the usage of "window" for a buffer and "frame" for an application-window. Also the way Undo/Redo works and such.

If you really aim for a modern Emacs, then forking it and fixing it from the ground up might be not the worst idea longterm.

Emacs is so old that it has accumulated quite a number of old cruft and debt.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#525

Post by rjmorris »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #427

They didn't even mention the most appalling non-modern aspect of Emacs: scrolling the page moves the cursor . This never happens on modern editors but it drives me crazy about Emacs and it's non-fixable.

Ha, that's something I love about Emacs and drives me crazy whenever I use something else.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#526

Post by phist_mcgee »

ginko wrote: post #365
phist_mcgee wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would say so, yes.

You are certainly entitled to your distorted and reductionist opinion.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#527

Post by FandangoRanger »

webmaven wrote: post #277
FandangoRanger wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there were projects that repackaged Emacs together with packages which adapt the program for people who prefer other keybindings. And failing that, maybe Emacs should include some facility for remapping key bindings?

> If only there were projects that repackaged Emacs together with packages which adapt the program for people who prefer other keybindings. And failing that, maybe Emacs should include some facility for remapping key bindings? The sarcasm here isn't warranted, the request wasn't for for distros of emacs to exist, but for them to be promoted to prospective users on the emacs website over a bare install.

My objection isn't to repackaging emacs with new defaults, but promoting forks and such on the emacs site. That's not what GNU does with other forks historically either.

What'd be the point of it all? There are perhaps dozens to hundreds of personal takes on emacs on Github and around the web. emacs will remain as it is, it isn't for some people and that's OK.

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#528

Post by dang »

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...

Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments to HN. We're trying for something different here.

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

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#529

Post by dang »

ginko wrote: post #365
phist_mcgee wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would say so, yes.

Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments to HN. We're trying for something different here.

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

Re: Toward a “modern” Emacs

#530

Post by dang »

phist_mcgee wrote: post #526
ginko wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say so, yes.

You are certainly entitled to your distorted and reductionist opinion.

Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments to HN. We're trying for something different here.

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

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