Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

Post by deworms » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 11:35 AM UTC

underatree wrote: post #17

jstx1 wrote: post #13

To be more popular Emacs needs to be easier to get started with and easier to extend. If I have to read a whole book or learn an entire new programming language, I'm not going to put the time in. If any time I search for "how to do x", I get a disjointed mess of "but spacemacs...", "in prelude...", "this custom elisp snippet..." where every piece of advice can be potentially incompatible with any past or future modif…

I'm a daily Emacs user, and happily use a 100 line init.el, mostly composed of "enable this mode". Emacs supports customization needs to the nth degree, but I've found that this is a false economyy. I agree Emacs needs to be easier to get started with.

Post by deworms » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 11:38 AM UTC

cpach wrote: post #15

jstx1 wrote: post #13

To be more popular Emacs needs to be easier to get started with and easier to extend. If I have to read a whole book or learn an entire new programming language, I'm not going to put the time in. If any time I search for "how to do x", I get a disjointed mess of "but spacemacs...", "in prelude...", "this custom elisp snippet..." where every piece of advice can be potentially incompatible with any past or future modif…

When I set out to learn Emacs in the year ~2001 or so, I just did C-h t in order to launch the builtin tutorial. IMHO that can still be a viable way to get started. Spacemacs might be nice but it’s in no way required in order to be productive with Emacs. My personal .emacs file is only 32 lines long (28 lines of comments are not counted).

Post by underatree » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 11:39 AM UTC

deworms wrote: post #18

Emacs should have been what VSCode is now - a powerhouse of customizability that offers unmatched functionality by default. Instead it's a toy for some old people who are still holding onto the remnants of an age that passed a long time ago. Emacs is basically useless compared to VS Code, and its authors are what's holding it back. I don't see it bouncing back to popularity any time soon. Anything you can do in Emacs…

Post by alvarlagerlof » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 11:40 AM UTC

thrower123 wrote: post #11

thom wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would worry if people started moving away from Emacs as text-centric. My biggest complaint with VSCode (which I do fully expect to take over and to which I will one day presumably have to migrate) is that there's so much damn UI for things. The terminal window isn't just a buffer of text like everything else, it's its own ungodly window that pops up differently. Most extensions are primarily UI instead of keyboard…

The problem with VS Code is there is *not enough* UI. I desperately would like to have some toolbars and menu options, because the kotkeys and key-chords VS Code uses, where they aren't following conventions, are not easily discoverable. They're in a bind because they are trying to straddle a market where you've got emacs an vim users to one side and Visual Studio users to the other. Some ability to customize the UI,…

Post by lgrapenthin » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 11:42 AM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #6

I’m surprised at the disparity between Emacs and vim use (20% vs 3% according to some survey). I thought it’s more equal. I suppose, while the learning curve for Vim is a lot steeper, you reach the power regions very quickly too. With Emacs, while it’s less alien initially, you need to learn quite a bit more to get to “power user” levels. But then, in turn, it seems that Emacs is much easier to mold into an IDE sort…