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The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

murilopereira.com

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Re: The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

#61

Post by thom »

africanboy wrote: post #16
oefrha wrote: post #5

> It also shines in areas where Emacs doesn’t: if you’re a programmer working on typical contemporary projects, mostly just wanting to get stuff done, things usually… just work. You install VSCode, open a source code file, get asked to install the extension for that particular language, and that’s it. You get smart completion, static analysis, linting, advanced debugging, refactoring tools, deep integration with git…

I use this for git interactions in VSCode https://github.com/kahole/edamagit

I have found this mostly good enough that it gives me hope for VSCode. I wish more extensions took inspiration from Emacs and were implemented in texty ways as editor windows though.

Re: The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

#62

Post by slightwinder »

beojan wrote: post #29
aldanor wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here in regards to Magit. I've tried seriously using Emacs (Spacemacs) for a year or two, but something always doesn't work as intended, code completion and static analysis is extremely hard to configure, especially you have some non-standard project setups. Then switched to a mix of vim for simple stuff or clion/pycharm in vim mode for rust/cpp/python... BUT, subjectively, Magit is the best git client ever crea…

Try Doom Emacs ( https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs ) instead of Spacemacs. It's much lighter weight and doesn't replace the configuration system to nearly the extent Spacemacs does.

Doom is not really better than spacemacs. It's just the same pain in a different flavor. Sure, in the micro-cosm of emacs it's pretty good, but in the macro-cosm it's still a pain and can't lift the limitations and problems of emacs.

Re: The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

#63

Post by mercer »

qppo wrote: post #45
submeta wrote: post #30

When you finally learn to master and config Emacs, you run circles around all other editors. Emacs is so much more than just an editor. But even if you only use it for coding: Magit is the best git client I have used in years (coming from PyCharm + Git Tower App, which is nice), then there‘s Ztree-Diff (excellent folder diff tool; previously using Kaleidoscope app), then Eshell for interacting with the server from wi…

You can do all that and more in vscode as well... you just have to "learn to master and config" it with your own plugins in JS. It's not that hard.

I use VSCode for my day to day coding, so I have nothing against it, but explain to me how I can 'do' Magit and the like in VSCode...?

Re: The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

#64

Post by gegtik »

Nothing to add - just a great article that provides an objective and humanistic review of the field which is extremely refreshing to me.

It invites the reader to consider their values and its mapping to the tooling we use (instead of working backward by having a gut feel of what they like and trying to justify why a specific feature is The Best)

Re: The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

#65

Post by kloud »

VSCode has great and convenient language support, but the trade-off is reduced text editing efficiency, slower speed and more bloat. It is a worthy trade-off in many situations, I use it often when working on projects that are written in languages I am not too familiar with.

I would like to emphasize how big of a game changer the next release of Neovim 0.5.0 will be. With builtin LSP support it will get code navigation, auto-completion and refactoring support on the level of VSCode out of the box, while being way more efficient and faster. I will likely still keep VSCode installed just in case, but only expect it to use it in rare occasions in the future.

Emacs is really powerful, but its age is showing and there are some serious technical deficiencies under the hood. I would challenge the idea from the post that the need for "Neoemacs" is not that great. From the history it appears to me more like that many people tried, but due to complexity of Emacs nobody has been able to successfully pull it off yet.

Re: The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

#66

Post by nitsky »

antonvs wrote: post #43
spamizbad wrote: post #2

A thoughtful essay. I find myself frustrated with Sublime Text these days, and as a former (novice) vim user, I’ve been debating if I should go for VSCode like all the young guns these days or commit to Doom Emacs to leverage a solid initial setup and my vim memory and fully embrace libre route, which are a little more aligned with my values (although not to the degree of RMS). I remain oddly indecisive.

I'm an old gun (learned to program in Fortran in 1977), and I recommend giving VScode a try. Its barrier to entry is very low, so you don't need to invest a lot of time to find out whether it's going to be productive for you. It's a real usability jump over older IDEs. I've switched from a combo of, mostly, Intellij IDEA and Vim to almost exclusively VScode (for development). I do still use Spacemacs just for org mod…

The default builds of vscode include telemetry and a non-free license.

For a truly free build of vscode, you need to use vscodium. See their description: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium#why-does-this-exist.

I suspect many developers are unaware of this.

Re: The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

#67

Post by slightwinder »

signal11 wrote: post #4

I don’t find VS Code to be a good text editor in the sense of a tool to wrangle text: the keyboard shortcuts are rather arbitrary and don’t seem to be logically organised, and it seems not to have learnt much from eg modern text editors like Sublime Text (even Sublime compatibility isn’t as good as the real thing). That said, for writing code, it’s fine because most of the time I’m thinking and typing in short runs o…

Shortcuts in VS Code are a setting. Just load which shortcut-setup you prefer. That's pretty normal with good dev-tools nowadays, because everyone has different preferences and habits.

Re: The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

#68

Post by Ozzie_osman »

elagost wrote: post #9

This is really well written and researched but confuses me. Do most people not do this - make choices based on values (and constantly re-evaluate those choices in the face of new information)? When I decide to use software, move to a new location, purchase cereal at the grocery store, buy music, and a variety of other daily activities, these are choices I make based on my values. Many times I end up picking something…

So I view a difference here between choosing a tool and designing a tool.

As a user/consumer, sure, you mostly decide pragmatically. Though values do come into play. For instance, if you value extensibility over approachability, you might be ok choosing a more complex tool even if it is more difficult to use at first.

But if you're building or designing a tool and you're making trade-offs, your values end up defining what you design and build.

Re: The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

#69

Post by moocowtruck »

kloud wrote: post #65

VSCode has great and convenient language support, but the trade-off is reduced text editing efficiency, slower speed and more bloat. It is a worthy trade-off in many situations, I use it often when working on projects that are written in languages I am not too familiar with. I would like to emphasize how big of a game changer the next release of Neovim 0.5.0 will be. With builtin LSP support it will get code navigati…

hmm in terms of neomacs, is this what remacs was trying to do but in rust?

Re: The values of Emacs, the Neovim revolution, and the VSCode gorilla

#70

Post by Ozzie_osman »

galfarragem wrote: post #20

Noob question: Is Sublime text still a good text-editor in 2021? Did it just loose momentum or not being open-source is insurmountable? I still think its speed and usability are not easy to match.

My problem with sublime was it was just less polished. Harder to find extensions. Extensions randomly don't work. Etc.

Vscode strikes a good balance. It's mostly got enterprise level of "polish" and stability, but still feels light-weight and flexible.

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