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The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

emacsconf.org

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Re: The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

#51

Post by serial_dev »

dleslie wrote: post #19

It's weird to be building an Emacs clone nowadays. It's fairly clear that Vim and Emacs _both_ lost the editor wars, and VSCode has come out on top. That's not to say either Vim or Emacs are dead or will disappear, but building a clone of a niche editor is risking dooming the project to being a niche within a niche. If it's just because hacking is fun, then by all means have a blast. But if the goal is to compete wit…

I, for example, am very happy that the Helix editor exists, which could be considered a clone of Vim (if you squint a little).

I'm pretty sure the authors of NeoVim heard wise advice like yours, but I'm happy they continued.

Re: The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

#52

Post by kyykky »

globular-toast wrote: post #43
heinrichhartman wrote: post #3

Direct Link to "Lem" the Common Lisp based "Emacs" discussed in the talk. https://lem-project.github.io/ https://github.com/lem-project/lem

Sadly not licensed under the GPL.

Is there a benefit in using GPL for text editors?

Re: The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

#53

Post by serial_dev »

account-5 wrote: post #4

Completely off topic but this website is how it should be done. No JavaScript enabled and I can play the videos and see the text and images. Well done.

The only thing missing is CSS that works (layout was messed up on my phone).

Re: The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

#54

Post by kagevf »

dleslie wrote: post #34
Pr0ject217 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from personal experience, I moved from VSCode to Doom Emacs a year ago, and the on-ramp wasn't nearly long or as tough as I thought. The defaults are good, and anything else that I customized I actually just used ChatGPT/GPT-4 to generate it. It took about a month to get used to the new setup. With LSP/Magit, it feels like I'm not missing out on much from what VSCode offered, and then whenever I want to pers…

I've been using Emacs for roughly three decades; it's my favourite editor. And for sure, LSP has been an absolute game changer. Worth noting is that LSP came from Microsoft as part of their efforts to build a better editor experience; and its integration with VSCode is largely unparalleled. For example: in VSCode the user doesn't have to understand how to install a language server, it just automagically suggests allo…

> Emacs is for people who want to make editor customization a _hobby_.

I disagree. I use it for org mode to take notes, track time, and write documentation. I use it with SLIME to program in Common Lisp (side projects, though). I make changes to .emacs or write an elisp function once in a while, usually to finesse something that I do frequently, but it's definitely not a hobby. It's a great tool, even before any customizations, IMO.

Re: The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

#55

Post by BeetleB »

dleslie wrote: post #35
LukeShu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure I read this exact comment 10 years ago, but "Sublime Text" instead of "VSCode".

VSCode is why Sublime Text, Atom, and others are not as relevant as they once were.

And in 10 years, there will be a comment saying "XYZ is why VSCode is not as relevant as it once was."

And Emacs will still be around.

Re: The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

#56

Post by EdwardCoffin »

I really wish that Deuce [1] [2] got more attention as a source for ideas for Emacs alternatives. It sounds incredibly cool.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20221002093520/https://groups.go...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210407151341/https://discuss.a...

Re: The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

#57

Post by logicprog »

digging wrote: post #40
BeetleB wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's fairly clear that Vim and Emacs _both_ lost the editor wars, and VSCode has come out on top. Many (most?) Emacs enthusiasts don't use it primarily for SW development. VSCode simply isn't an alternative for their needs. Make two lists: - List of things you can do in VSCode that you can't in Emacs - List of things you can do in Emacs that you can't in VSCode The latter list will be 10-100x longer.

Since I only use VSCode (or Codium...), what sorts of things would be in the latter list?

Check out org mode (very complex and advanced task management / todo list system, calendar, etc), org roam (basically all the features of Obsidian), the ability to act as an email client, having a cross platform system shell independent shell (in elisp), and of course just general emacs architecture things like the ability to hot reload and replace and debug and inspect and get docs on and add to and modify every part of the editor

Re: The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

#58

Post by omaranto »

dleslie wrote: post #35
LukeShu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure I read this exact comment 10 years ago, but "Sublime Text" instead of "VSCode".

VSCode is why Sublime Text, Atom, and others are not as relevant as they once were.

My impression is that all of those are fads, we jsut haven't seen VS Code fade way yet, like the others have. I've used Emacs throughout all of those fads, seems easier than switching editors every few years.

Re: The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

#59

Post by dingnuts »

shadowgovt wrote: post #41

I think I fell in love with emacs when I realized that individual key presses could be scripted. Or possibly when I wrapped my head around macro injection. Hard to say, this thing grew on me from being an absolute space alien of an architecture to the first tool in the toolbox I reach for if I've got a new project to tackle. My advice to people when editor wars come up is that going deep on something is more importan…

> I happened to learn emacs first and would be repeating a lot of labor to go as deep on vi.

Speaking as someone who used vim for 10 years before getting sniped by Emacs (ten years ago.. shit I'm getting old):

vim isn't as deep as Emacs, it's not even close. vim is only as deep as evil-mode. In fact, vim has a UX paradigm that's out-of-the-ordinary, and that's it.

That's why in Emacs, modal editing is just another minor mode..

Re: The Emacsen family, the design of an Emacs and the importance of Lisp (2023)

#60

Post by logicprog »

I like the idea of a more modern Emacs that uses the full power of Common Lisp a lot, but I worry I'd miss a lot of features. Does Lem have org mode, a good LSP system, something like projectile, and the ability to display images and GUI buttons and such? And most importantly, does it have an evil mode with doom/spacemacs style leader key support?
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