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

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

#331

Post by eadmund »

na85 wrote: post #233
craigsmansion wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Never mind]

Whether intentionally or not you seem to have directly reinforced the argument I was making. >Why from the outside? You're, quite literally, one command away from being on the inside: "M-x ielm" I have no idea what point you're trying to make here. By opening with what I'm sure is an oh-so-witty commit like this you signal that you aren't going to engage honestly in this debate. >Emacs is very popular amongst emacs-u…

> >Why from the outside? You're, quite literally, one command away from being on the inside: "M-x ielm"

> I have no idea what point you're trying to make here. By opening with what I'm sure is an oh-so-witty commit like this you signal that you aren't going to engage honestly in this debate.

I don't think that he was trying to make a 'witty' or snarky comment, just pointing out that anyone who wants to can be 'inside' Emacs development simply by firing up Emacs and running ielm (the interactive Emacs Lisp mode). It's an Emacs REPL: one has exactly as much power in it as anyone on the dev team. If you want to, you can even recompile the C bits …

> I categorically reject the idea that polished software is mutually exclusive of free software.

FWIW, I agree. I think that the default Emacs look could be a lot better.

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

#332

Post by rauhl »

cjohansson wrote: post #208

I don’t see why everyone needs to have the same opinion and editor, I’m fine with everyone using the editor they like best. It’s a tiresome endless debate

In principle, I agree with you. But there is a practical issue: if everyone used the same editor core, then we could all share improvements to it. Kinda like how the explosion of creativity in the Web (for good or for ill — I am still unpersuaded the JavaScript and SPAs are a good thing) was enabled by the common platform of HTTP+HTML+CSS+JavaScript.

Instead, we have some people writing extensions in elisp for Emacs, some in Vimscript for vim, some in JavaScript for VSCode, some brilliant madmen in rc for acme, some poor saps in Java for Eclipse.

In the end, I wonder if this is not more of a theoretical waste, though. Just like a command economy theoretically has less waste than a free market, but in practice every real-world free market has orders of magnitude less waste than any command economy, I wonder if in practice the profusion of editors has helped keep us from being locked into a local maximum (and argument which can be made against HTTP+HTML+CSS+JavaScript, BTW …).

It’s tough to say, it really is. For my part, I wish more folks would give Emacs a fair try, and I also wish that Emacs were a little easier to give a fair try. It is by far the single best editor/IDE/platform/OS out there.

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

#333

Post by hibbelig »

emptysongglass wrote: post #198
hibbelig wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very interesting. I used Emacs for a long time, but slowly got weaned off it. - I used it for email, then I had to collaborate with people who wrote "please see my comments in orange below". (Of course, they were Outlook users.) Emacs did not show that orange color, so I didn't know... Maybe these days it's possible to read Outlook emails nicely in Emacs. - I used it for development, then the Java software I wor…

I don't understand why people are moving Linux --> Windows. At the company I work for everything is native to Linux--I am floored by the number of interns we get who are using Windows (it's all of them). We have an intake script for getting them up on WSL2 with our stack on top but man these graduates are CompSci people and they did 4 plus years of CompSci using Windows? I can only imagine the pain. Or rather, I know…

When I started the job, the little team I was on had a special deal that allowed them to use Linux; the rest of the company was on Windows. When I switched from Linux to Windows, it was partly due to outside pressure and partly due to a desire to help team members in India who did not have that special deal and were thus forced to use Windows. But a couple of years later, the special deal evaporated and everyone had to move to Windows...

I suspect that it is still common to be forced to use Windows at $BIGCO.

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

#334

Post by brnt »

emptysongglass wrote: post #198
hibbelig wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very interesting. I used Emacs for a long time, but slowly got weaned off it. - I used it for email, then I had to collaborate with people who wrote "please see my comments in orange below". (Of course, they were Outlook users.) Emacs did not show that orange color, so I didn't know... Maybe these days it's possible to read Outlook emails nicely in Emacs. - I used it for development, then the Java software I wor…

I don't understand why people are moving Linux --> Windows. At the company I work for everything is native to Linux--I am floored by the number of interns we get who are using Windows (it's all of them). We have an intake script for getting them up on WSL2 with our stack on top but man these graduates are CompSci people and they did 4 plus years of CompSci using Windows? I can only imagine the pain. Or rather, I know…

There's a whole galaxy of small and medium (and actually quite large) businesses automatizing the boring shit in a boring way. Its my experience these shops nearly always use Windows. Note that most regular people do as well, so there's a fertile ground. Think of how things like Embarcadero and Pascal survives.

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

#335

Post by _ofdw »

eadmund wrote: post #331
na85 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether intentionally or not you seem to have directly reinforced the argument I was making. >Why from the outside? You're, quite literally, one command away from being on the inside: "M-x ielm" I have no idea what point you're trying to make here. By opening with what I'm sure is an oh-so-witty commit like this you signal that you aren't going to engage honestly in this debate. >Emacs is very popular amongst emacs-u…

> >Why from the outside? You're, quite literally, one command away from being on the inside: "M-x ielm" > I have no idea what point you're trying to make here. By opening with what I'm sure is an oh-so-witty commit like this you signal that you aren't going to engage honestly in this debate. I don't think that he was trying to make a 'witty' or snarky comment, just pointing out that anyone who wants to can be 'inside…

>one has exactly as much power in it as anyone on the dev team

Technically, perhaps, but not politically. In that respect everyone who is not a core maintainer is an outsider. The latter is more relevant when trying to get the project to change. Sure, I can make my own emacs look nice but that doesn't change the default.

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

#336

Post by r-zip »

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.

VSCode isn't as flexible at all though. You can't even create a keybinding that executes multiple commands (macro). There aren't hooks. You can't just write a function in a file and execute it. There isn't the same level of introspection.

In a lot of ways, VSCode is more convenient, but its extensibility doesn't come close to matching Emacs'.

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

#337

Post by jrochkind1 »

tome wrote: post #96
jrochkind1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure and I see your point, but also, you are maybe saying that, effectively, "convenience" or "usability" are values you (and most people) prioritize. Which is not so different from when the OP article talks about emacs prioritizing "stability" really. "stability" isn't, like an ethical value or something really, it's a practical one, as are many of the others listed in OP.

I don't think "convenience" is a value for the buyer of a consumer good any more than "going downhill" is a value for the designer of a roller coaster. It's just easier.

Sometimes people choose a path that is less convenient, they don't always choose the most convenient, right?

You may go to an ice-cream shop further away, because you like their ice cream better. You may choose to buy from an independent bookseller instead of amazon because you want to support them to stay in business. Or you might have to choose between a cheaper but less convenient option (say with two week delivery time), or a more convenient but more expensive option -- some people at some times will choose cheap, others at other times convenience.

Convenience/being "easier" doesn't always win against other values.

This shows that convenience or "easiness" is in fact just one of several values, weighted differently in different contexts.

Or are you talking about the fact that it might not be totally conscious and explicit? True, I think the way the OP is thinking about values, they are not always totally conscious and explicit.

Compare to other values in OP's list -- they aren't all "ethical" at all. Values in this context aren't about morality or ethics, just about what factors are valued. Say, "stability" or "velocity". A software development process doesn't necessarily consciously and explicitly acknowledge that they have chosen "velocity" over "approachability".

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

#338

Post by intrasight »

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…

My holiday project was to re-tool my development environment. I am going to try using both VS Code and Emacs on my current .Net 5 project. I installed the Emacs keybindings extension for VS Code. I upgraded from an ancient version of Emacs to version 27. I do really want to do development in both so as to decide what works best for me.

Emacs configuration is a labor of love as any Emacs user can attest to. I'm already at 50 hours and guestimate that I've got another 20 hours to go before it's where I'd like it to be. This has required multiple tech support discussions on Stack Overflow and Github and Reddit. I constantly ask myself if it's worth it, and only time will tell. But I've been using Emacs for 30 years and it's a tough habit to break. Still, I can easily justify the effort as I'll be using Emacs until my last keystroke. The open question is will I be using it for C#/.Net development.

I do wish to give VS Code a fair go. And certainly it makes sense to be proficient in that editor.

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

#339

Post by cle »

GordonS wrote: post #258
cle wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big appeal of magit, at least for me, is that I can quickly do it with the keyboard. Open magit, press “s” on each hunk to stage it and magit moves to the next hunk, then “c c” to write a commit message, C-c C-c to commit, then “q” and I’m right back in the code. If you need to edit a hunk you press enter on it and it drops you into the file. This is much much faster than doing it with the mouse, and keeps me mor…

VSCode has an extension for that too, edamagit[0] :) One of the big appeals of VSCode for me is the huge community around it, and the range of plugins available. [0] https://github.com/kahole/edamagit

I get that. For me VSCode is pretty clunky in terms of replacing what I like about Emacs. Writing a plugin is way more of an exercise than writing a couple lines of elisp to change something or add some new functionality, things are not self-documenting, it's not nearly as easy to open a REPL and start poking around programmatically at open files, etc. These are the things that I value with Emacs and that make me more productive.

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

#340

Post by stnmtn »

markmark wrote: post #301
brandonmenc wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can refactor with IDEs too, and I don't remember emacs being better at this than JetBrains is.

I've seen a few text editor pros who just weren't aware of what modern ides are capable of, particularly with strongly typed languages. They thought grep, regex and keyboard shortcuts were impressive.

There is something that I think most programmers have, which is that seeing someone type an arcane-looking combination of characters, press enter, and suddenly a variable has been renamed in every file in the directory is more impressive then clicking on UI elements to get to find and replace, then clicking the "execute" button.

They both do the same thing, probably take the same amount of type to actually complete, but our brains are wired to see the keyboard-only method as some sort of cyberpunk magic.

Or maybe that's just me!

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