"the terminal itself, which is almost always monospaced and thus fatiguing to read"
It is? Why? I read monospaced text all day long. I don't find it fatiguing in the least. In fact, I think I might prefer it to non-monospaced text.
The Emacsification of Software
81–90 of 304 posts
Re: The Emacsification of Software
#82Terrible analogy. Emacs has always had comparably fewer major options for packages compared to other tools, there is often an obvious option based on your needs, and it has never been my experience that people decide to just roll their own versions of everything. The author has clearly never used neovim or now pi. NPM packages in general would have also been a way better example. Edit: Sure there is some small overla…
Seriously, your idea here is maybe you can start an Emacs vs. vi fight in the comment threads?
Re: The Emacsification of Software
#83Interesting article.
When my Emacs opens a markdown file it immediately converts it into OrgMode format. I find that more readable, more navigable and more editable.
Now I'll have to go and meditate about Emacsification.
Re: The Emacsification of Software
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It was imagined that programming would become easy enough that anyone could learn to do it. Arguably LLMs take us further away from that than we've ever been. All they do is automate copying and pasting in shit from StackOverflow. We were closer to everyone being able to learn how to program computers in the mid-80s when everyone had one and they started up with a BASIC prompt.
Ah yes, the 80s, when everyone had a computer.
Well, yeah. The home computer revolution.
Literally everyone had a ZX Spectrum, or Commodore 64, or a BBC Micro if their parents were rich and thought that having the same as they had at school was a good idea.
Re: The Emacsification of Software
#85Terrible analogy. Emacs has always had comparably fewer major options for packages compared to other tools, there is often an obvious option based on your needs, and it has never been my experience that people decide to just roll their own versions of everything. The author has clearly never used neovim or now pi. NPM packages in general would have also been a way better example. Edit: Sure there is some small overla…
Seriously, your idea here is maybe you can start an Emacs vs. vi fight in the comment threads?
No one mentioned vi, I like neovim just fine, and I'm using pi daily. Nice try though. My only point is that if you want to talk about rewriting everything yourself, NIH, churn, whatever you want to call it, Emacs is absolutely not a great example.
Re: The Emacsification of Software
#86I've absolutely engaged in making personal software [0] thanks to the age of LLMs. But to be honest, my time using Emacs didn't teach me to "build personal software". My Emacs set up was extremely brittle, and it was a nightmare when I tried to use it across Windows & macOS. My university project was written using an unholy combination of org-mode & some workflow to create a beautiful LaTeX file, and I couldn't tell…
Have had the same emacs setup on linux, windows and macos for 15 years. Honestly, it's the best thing in my computing life.
Re: The Emacsification of Software
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes, the 80s, when everyone had a computer.
Well, yeah. The home computer revolution. Literally everyone had a ZX Spectrum, or Commodore 64, or a BBC Micro if their parents were rich and thought that having the same as they had at school was a good idea.
If you change "literally everyone" to "a minority" we can agree.
Re: The Emacsification of Software
#88This is so exactly right and I've been saying it to whoever will put up with me...(and now am embarrassed I have no link to show for it. oh well, shame is good for writing. envy too!) Software production is now so easy that everything is a .emacs file (pronounced "dot emacs" btw): meaning, each individual has their own entirely personal, endlessly customizable software cocoon. As tptacek says in the OP, it's "easier…
Tarver's piece was new to me, and fun, and spot on. Yes, LLMs bring the emacs cruft heap to the masses. A throwaway culture on disk is a lot less worrisome than one on soil.
Re: The Emacsification of Software
#89[dead]
Re: The Emacsification of Software
#90Interesting article. When my Emacs opens a markdown file it immediately converts it into OrgMode format. I find that more readable, more navigable and more editable. Now I'll have to go and meditate about Emacsification.
I know, right? Org-mode is soooo much more practical. imenu works great, sparse-trees are awesome, you can edit pretty much any part¹ in an indirect buffer and all. These days I try to consume anything that can be fit into an outline, in org-mode - hackernews², reddit³, slack⁴, jira boards and tickets⁵, wiktionary entries⁶, etc.
Fun anecdote - I once needed to sort some nested items in a big yaml file. After spending three minutes trying to understand sort-regexp-fields (or some other function), I cheated - I ran org-mode, and then org-sort and then went back to yaml-mode. So stupid, yet so brilliant. Why the heck would I ever want to use "first-class IDE" or "intuitive, plebeian editor" if Emacs has anything I could possibly imagine? Right at my fingertips.
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¹ https://github.com/agzam/org-edit-indirect.el
² https://github.com/thanhvg/emacs-hnreader/
³ https://github.com/thanhvg/emacs-reddigg
⁴ https://github.com/agzam/slacko.el