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Let's just use Emacs

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Re: Let's just use Emacs

#101

Post by jlongster »

technomancy wrote: post #82
jlongster wrote: post #79

I resonate somewhat with the gripes about Emacs' crustiness. But on the other hand, I don't understand the complaints about it being ugly. I haven't heard that for a while. I'd like to think that my Emacs is quite pretty: http://jlongster.com/s/emacs.png There are things Emacs can do which VIM will never do. And vice-versa. They are separate editors embracing separate philosophies. Lastly, keep in mind that this is 4…

I think most of the "ugly" gripes come from people who either don't know how to change the font or haven't bothered to turn the tool bar off.

That's true. I'm considering making a few screencasts that show how go from nothing to a full Emacs installation/customization on different platforms. I think that would be neat/fun.

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#102

Post by raganwald »

ajross wrote: post #100
raganwald wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's unfair? That the arguments made by emacs users with respect to less powerful editors resemble the arguments made by Lisp users with respect to less powerful programming languages? I'm not taking a stand on the argument one way or the other, just pointing out how similar they sound. You said: "There are huge benefits available if you give up all your existing editing tools and spend some time (and yeah, it can…

I'm not taking a stand on the argument one way or the other, just pointing out how similar they sound. Uh, no. You're making an editorial point that they both seem equally silly, you just aren't saying that. If your only purpose to posting was a bland linguistic analogy with no bearing on the subject being discussed, then I withdraw my argument on the grounds that your post is unimaginably boring. :) But to respond:…

My words meant exactly what they said, no more and no less. I know this because (a) I wrote them, and (b) I happen to like Lisp, Emacs, and the people I know who use them. I'm pretty sure I am not in the habit of describing their arguments as "silly."

At the risk of appealing to authority, I do not consider this essay silly: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

What I was doing is making a commentary about the similarity between cultures, or perhaps mindsets, or perhaps people.

Now, if you want to believe that when I say X, that I really mean Y, and when I assert "No, I really meant X," that I am lying and I meant Y but have some sort of duplicitous reason for telling you that I meant X, that is your right.

But I'm going to have to let you go your way on this issue, and I will go mine.

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#103

Post by cema »

mhd wrote: post #59

Lots of professional authors use "advanced" text editors for their stuff. And sadly, that often means old editors, because they often tend to have features that modern word processors lack (or make it easier to accept then). And of course once you get used to something... There was a Salon article about people still using XyWrite[1]. As mentioned in the post, GRRM is one of the people[2] still using WordStar. I know…

Another example: Vernor Vinge (sci fi author, and a former math and CS professor at San Diego State) uses emacs [http://www.norwescon.org/archives/norwescon33/vingeinterview...]

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#104

Post by sedachv »

eropple wrote: post #31
EdiX wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of modern IDEs provide features that are pretty close to magic, compared to what emacs sports. Which modern IDEs and what features? I have used eclipse for months before deciding I was better off with emacs with eclim-mode anyway to provide the only two features of eclipse I liked: the compiler and the ability to see the members of an object (occasionally).

I work on a 5GB source tree at work with a couple (or more? I haven't looked) thousand Java source files. After my last machine decided it would be a good time to crap out and I started over with a new OS X install, I tried working strictly with vim and emacs and our scripts (written by vim aficionados, it seems) to navigate around the codebase. It was like a root canal. If I was on fire. Seriously--I'm not an Eclips…

The take-away I got from your post is if I need to deal with "enterprise-size" crapware I'm better off using IDEs. That is certainly an interesting niche, but why would I ever want to work on "enterprise-size" crapware?

I've used JBuilder, Eclipse, NetBeans, and Visual Basic 6. None of them address a fraction of the things I actually need or like to do on a regular basis (edit files remotely, browse directories, use a shell, actually edit text efficiently). At work my Emacs session has files open in four different programming languages. There's nothing stopping people from writing refactoring tools for Emacs (take a look at Xrefactory), it's just that grep and dired and search-replace are universal tools that are good enough for all occasions. If you need something else it's easy enough to use macros or write elisp code to do it (ever try writing an Eclipse plugin? that works with multiple versions of Eclipse?).

You are assuming that your use case is typical. It's not. Eclipse may be better at your use case, but it fails miserably at the things typical Emacs and vim users need.

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#105

Post by cema »

jasonkester wrote: post #58
danssig wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refactoring. In Visual Studio I can click on any usage of a badly named class, press F2, type in the new name and it will be updated everywhere. Even the name of the file holding the class is updated.

More importantly, it won't be updated for things that aren't it. As in, you can have a class called 'i', used in 50 files, and confidently replace those usages and only those usages with another name. That's something you just plain can't pull off with Regular Expressions. [waits for somebody to post the 4000 character Regex that actually does this correctly]

Yes, access to the syntax tree generated by an interpreter of the language based, I guess, on the current buffer mode, would be very helpful.

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#106

Post by BrandonM »

tedunangst wrote: post #78
raganwald wrote: post #18

Articles about why anything you can do in a "simpler" text editor can and should be done in emacs strongly resemble articles about why anything you can do in a less powerful programming language can and should be done in Lisp. I don't think it's a coïncidence.

I'm not sure if you're making a general point, but I don't think it's universally true. Anything you can do on a netbook can be done faster and more accurately on a supercomputer. Working backwards from why we don't all use supercomputers, we can probably figure out why not everyone uses lisp and emacs.

> Anything you can do on a netbook can be done faster and more accurately on a supercomputer.

What about:

  - developing software while on a flight?
  - recording field data for an experiment?
  - using hibernate or sleep to save power?
  - connecting to a projector for a presentation?
  - ...
The point is that it's important to use the right tool for the job, and that for many tasks a netbook is vastly preferable to a supercomputer. "Working backwards from" use the right tool for the job seems more instructive than your implication (whatever it was).

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#107

Post by cema »

dpatru wrote: post #24
RexRollman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not directing this at you personally, even though I am responding to your comment, but do we really need "tl;dr" type comments here on Hacker News?

> do we really need "tl;dr" type comments here on Hacker News Yes we do. They serve to save people time.

  They serve to save people time.
Or to draw attention to a succinctly formulated essence of an article. They help me in focussing on the articles that may be of interest.

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#108

Post by BrandonM »

jlongster wrote: post #101
technomancy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of the "ugly" gripes come from people who either don't know how to change the font or haven't bothered to turn the tool bar off.

That's true. I'm considering making a few screencasts that show how go from nothing to a full Emacs installation/customization on different platforms. I think that would be neat/fun.

Please do. Bonus points if you include something about Vimpulse (http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/vimpulse.el) to entice vim users to give it a try.

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#109

Post by eropple »

sedachv wrote: post #104
eropple wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on a 5GB source tree at work with a couple (or more? I haven't looked) thousand Java source files. After my last machine decided it would be a good time to crap out and I started over with a new OS X install, I tried working strictly with vim and emacs and our scripts (written by vim aficionados, it seems) to navigate around the codebase. It was like a root canal. If I was on fire. Seriously--I'm not an Eclips…

The take-away I got from your post is if I need to deal with "enterprise-size" crapware I'm better off using IDEs. That is certainly an interesting niche, but why would I ever want to work on "enterprise-size" crapware? I've used JBuilder, Eclipse, NetBeans, and Visual Basic 6. None of them address a fraction of the things I actually need or like to do on a regular basis (edit files remotely, browse directories, use…

> That is certainly an interesting niche, but why would I ever want to work on "enterprise-size" crapware?

Because it pays the bills, and pays them quite well.

> it's just that grep and dired and search-replace are universal tools that are good enough for all occasions. omething else it's easy enough to use macros or write elisp code to do it

Extract a superclass or an interface with them. Automatically and contextually build your getters/setters in Java/properties in C#, respecting visibility and implementing proper logic in the case of constant or final fields.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for you to do either. Emacs is nice enough, but it's absolutely silly to claim that context-insensitive tools are "good enough for all occasions."

And I would be pretty easily called a user of both emacs and vim. Both are tools for specific use cases. They are not, as the strange culture of text-editor-worshippers would like to claim, inherently superior as editors simply because you know them.

Re: Let's just use Emacs

#110

Post by mixmax »

technomancy wrote: post #82
jlongster wrote: post #79

I resonate somewhat with the gripes about Emacs' crustiness. But on the other hand, I don't understand the complaints about it being ugly. I haven't heard that for a while. I'd like to think that my Emacs is quite pretty: http://jlongster.com/s/emacs.png There are things Emacs can do which VIM will never do. And vice-versa. They are separate editors embracing separate philosophies. Lastly, keep in mind that this is 4…

I think most of the "ugly" gripes come from people who either don't know how to change the font or haven't bothered to turn the tool bar off.

I'm not trying to be snarky here, but if you change the font and turn the toolbar off what's left of the design?
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