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Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

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Re: Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

#171

Post by natded »

xedrac wrote: post #164

I've used Emacs for about 5 years now, exclusively in Evil mode. One of my biggest complaints is that my big complex configuration setup seems to break every time I migrate to a new version of Emacs, or a new computer. This last time, I had to install VS code to get my work done quickly because I didn't have time to mess around with my configuration (yet again). It was surprisingly easy to get up and going on vscode.…

The speed to 'first development environment' (lol) is a day and night difference between VSC and Emacs. VSC is faster to setup by several orders of magnitude (even if you know Emacs). Overall I believe you can get the same functionality, if less customizable, in VSC.

I can't remember the last time by VSC configuration broke. I guess there isn't much to break in it.

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

#172

Post by jyriand »

isolli wrote: post #74
vintermann wrote: post #71

Emacs' fundamental problem is that in text editing, there are many equally good ways to do things. It's equally good for Undo to be on control _ as on control z. It's equally good for scrolling to move the cursor as to not move it. It's equally good to have Lisp as a scripting language as JavaScript. No, really, I mean it. It's not a big deal in the big picture. And Emacs choose perfectly good, perfectly sensible def…

There's nothing worse than reflexively typing ctrl+z to undo in Emacs and instead have the window disappear into the background!

Or while cutting a text in browser and typing ctrl+w, thereby closing the tab.

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

#173

Post by adamc »

A number of years ago, I reported a problem with its default Python mode and the way it automatically indents things. I got a response, which confirmed it was a problem. Then nothing happened and the report was eventually closed.

For me, that was representative of several other issues I had encountered over the years. It's a great tool, but it is 1) old and sometimes baroque ("make-frame" comes to mind), 2) so large, even if you consider just the built-in functionality, that they seem to have problems keeping everything up to snuff.

I am starting to move to Visual Studio Code. That's a painful shift, because I wrote lots of customizations in emacs, but, on the other hand, it has much better tools for many modern things I need to deal with (AWS, for example).

I love emacs, but it needs a replacement -- something with the same basic architecture, but more modern concepts of how editors work and maybe an extension language easier to get buy-in for than emacs lisp. I had hopes for Atom, but... that looks pretty dead.

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

#174

Post by krylon »

jimbokun wrote: post #83
kqr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like it's not written by an actual Emacs user... and the fact that I can tell points to the real fundamental problem of Emacs: it's not a text editor but the real thing it is is so complicated it finds it easier to market itself as a mere text editor. What is Emacs really? It's a virtual Lisp machine with a standard library for writing graphical text applications. It's more like the JVM than like Notepad.…

> What is Emacs really? It's a virtual Lisp machine with a standard library for writing graphical text applications. If you substitute Javascript for Lisp, doesn't that describe Visual Studio Code pretty well? So now there's a product that leverages the architectural advantages of Emacs, with modern defaults across the board.

I have not played with VS Code a lot, but I get the impression that, yes, they aim for something similar. I'm not qualified to judge, though, how successful they are so far.

FWIW, when I hear people talk about VS Code, they appear to like it very much. But AFAICT, it has some way to go to catch up with all the functionality emacs has accreted over 30+ years.

Also, there is an effort replace the old lisp engine inside emacs with GNU Guile, which is a JIT compiler that supports Scheme, ELisp, and Javascript. I have not tried it so far, but it might become possible to customize and extend emacs with Javascript in the not-so-distant future.

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

#175

Post by agarren »

gopiandcode wrote: post #116

I see many people on here (likely non-emacs users) claiming that Emacs is obsolete/outdated/dying by completely misunderstanding its position in the ecosystem. Maybe it's easier to understand via analogy. Let's consider cars. Of the global population of car users, relatively few of them are F1 racecar drivers. Furthermore, you can easily make the case that the particular features (aerodynamics, speed etc.) that make…

The VS Code/normal car and emacs/F1 racer analogy seems weak. VS Code can bring most of the functionality of a relatively well tuned and customized vim or emacs setup to a much broader range of developers, and with very little investment. Less time spent gold-plating and polishing an editor's configuration is more time spent solving actual problems.

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

#176

Post by 2pEXgD0fZ5cF »

deworms wrote: post #21
underatree wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You would probably be more productive in VS Code with an empty config.

Can you elaborate with examples from both emacs and VSCode on why you believe that to be the case?

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

#177

Post by deworms »

gopiandcode wrote: post #116

I see many people on here (likely non-emacs users) claiming that Emacs is obsolete/outdated/dying by completely misunderstanding its position in the ecosystem. Maybe it's easier to understand via analogy. Let's consider cars. Of the global population of car users, relatively few of them are F1 racecar drivers. Furthermore, you can easily make the case that the particular features (aerodynamics, speed etc.) that make…

There's that condescending attitude again. In your fantasy land Emacs is an F1 race car, and everyone else is a CRUD-writing code monkey that drives a cheap sedan.

In reality though, Emacs is a subpar editor for both everyday and specialized tasks that's fallen into obscurity as its maintainers refuse to implement anything that would make it keep up the pace with superior editors.

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

#178

Post by qwerty2021 »

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…

evidently, some people do deserve being talked down to.

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

#179

Post by Zababa »

gopiandcode wrote: post #116

I see many people on here (likely non-emacs users) claiming that Emacs is obsolete/outdated/dying by completely misunderstanding its position in the ecosystem. Maybe it's easier to understand via analogy. Let's consider cars. Of the global population of car users, relatively few of them are F1 racecar drivers. Furthermore, you can easily make the case that the particular features (aerodynamics, speed etc.) that make…

I don't want to sound rude but I've never seen a well executed car analogy, especially when they use F1 racecars. Your analogy doesn't make the position of Emacs easier to understand at all.

Re: Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)

#180

Post by drumhead »

gopiandcode wrote: post #116

I see many people on here (likely non-emacs users) claiming that Emacs is obsolete/outdated/dying by completely misunderstanding its position in the ecosystem. Maybe it's easier to understand via analogy. Let's consider cars. Of the global population of car users, relatively few of them are F1 racecar drivers. Furthermore, you can easily make the case that the particular features (aerodynamics, speed etc.) that make…

I used Emacs, its a lot more than just a simple text editor, its more powerful than a text editor or even many IDEs. But the learning curve is too steep for most people. With VScode I can just install it and start working straight away, I cant really do that with Emacs. I dont want Emacs to die out or fade away, but lets be honest its for a much smaller group of users. It they want it to be be popular it would have to change, but then it wouldnt be Emacs anymore.
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