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

murilopereira.com

81–90 of 353 posts

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

#81
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

sincerely curious, what are the limitations and problems of emacs? I use both vs code and emacs. I've been using vs code a bit more these days because I feel like the UI itself is a bit more powerful and modern. I've also come to like that If i want a language support it often installs all the things I'd want to make a good experience, and I have less to mix and match. I like the mix and match approach I've always used in emacs, but it turns out there fewer scenario where I want that power then I'd have thought, and more where I just want some out of the box functionality from an extension author

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

#82
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…

For many who don't have experience, lisps are intimidating

Reminds me Ryan Dahl's quip from way back when:

> I love Go so much (SO MUCH), but I cannot get past the fact that goroutines share memory or that it's statically typed. I love Erlang but I cannot get the past the syntax. I do not like the JVM because it takes too long to startup and has a bad history of XML files and IDE integration - which give me a bad vibe.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4310723

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

#83
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…

I’m kinda in love with VSCode at the moment, even though I have used Emacs (or at least some mac customized version, maybe SpaceEmacs?) for agda-mode

When I tried to go outside of the agda-mode documentation, to try to learn emacs properly, I kinda struggled to find a reliable tutorial or introduction that got me started on how emacs and the culture/ecosystem works. (Maybe it was just me who got tripped up by my unfamiliarity with it.)

Do you have a good recommendation for a way or a book to get into emacs?

It does seem nice to run your editors in terminals, instead of the other way around.. haha

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

#84
post #55
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…

From a recent HN discussion, I learned that emacs has had a sampling profiler built in — not on MELPA or something, first-party! — since about 2013. How many widely-used applications these days contain a facility for asking "why is the command I just issued executing slowly?" and for _doing something about it?_ As far as I'm concerned, that's now table stakes for a programming environment: you should be able to not j…

In terms of IDEs, IntelliJ also comes with built-in profiling. And every modern web browser has robust built-in profiling tools.

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

#85
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they don't. You're an exception. Most people choose based on practicality or price. Free = even better. I find that one of the few places where people act based on their values is raising children. And even there, a lot of people skip raising their children completely. For everything else: convenience, price, maybe risk.

And tech people tend to be much more willing to spend time&effort "optimizing" their choices to fit their values than the average population. At least for "small to medium" choices - not sure about raising children.

https://xkcd.com/610/

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

#86
post #19
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…

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…

Why do you need to use a git "client"? What's wrong with just using the standard CLI? I use VS code and never bother with its git ui. Just open a terminal and use git commands.

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

#87
post #63
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...?

Literally anything you can do in emcas there is an extension for or at least one in dev. Vscode will outgrow emcas given its critics mass and momentum.

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

#88
post #84
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a recent HN discussion, I learned that emacs has had a sampling profiler built in — not on MELPA or something, first-party! — since about 2013. How many widely-used applications these days contain a facility for asking "why is the command I just issued executing slowly?" and for _doing something about it?_ As far as I'm concerned, that's now table stakes for a programming environment: you should be able to not j…

In terms of IDEs, IntelliJ also comes with built-in profiling. And every modern web browser has robust built-in profiling tools.

I think you're referring to (its wrapper around) Python cProfile, not a profiler for the IDE itself?

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

#89
post #75
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…

That’s amazing news. Native LSP would be game changing. I use coc, but it takes a bit of messing about to get everything working smoothly. Also vscode has has a bunch of extra stuff beyond what’s available via LSP for python now, which is a shame because I’d love to get a full pyright + bells experience in vim.

I’ve had great luck using ALE lately. I don’t have much experience with coc but the ALE setup process is very straightforward.

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

#90
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…

I’m kinda in love with VSCode at the moment, even though I have used Emacs (or at least some mac customized version, maybe SpaceEmacs?) for agda-mode When I tried to go outside of the agda-mode documentation, to try to learn emacs properly, I kinda struggled to find a reliable tutorial or introduction that got me started on how emacs and the culture/ecosystem works. (Maybe it was just me who got tripped up by my unfa…

I've had a similar experience to yours. Even when I'm curious and motivated to learn, I find it hard to learn more and improve. There seems to be a lot of assumed knowledge from most tutorials and articles about where to place code snippets, configure things, what ui elements are called, etc. One thing I'd recommend is joining the spacemacs discord/slack and just asking for help on the questions you get stuck on.
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