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Even more batteries included with Emacs

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Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#51

Post by sph »

quertyrecord74 wrote: post #49
QwenGlazer9000 wrote: post #7

All the other comments in this thread talk about emacs instability when that hasn't been the case for me. I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works other than some color scheme weirdness I had to fix. I used to be on neovim, and that ecosystem compared to emacs feels like this image: https://i.imgflip.com/2pg2s7.jpg Some of it is the maintainer shielding us from the breaking changes,…

Use borg package. You'll get rock solid emacs. Worth the effort.

Link: https://github.com/emacscollective/borg

Seems worth a look, simply because it’s from the magit author.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#52

Post by sph »

shevy-java wrote: post #11
QwenGlazer9000 wrote: post #7

All the other comments in this thread talk about emacs instability when that hasn't been the case for me. I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works other than some color scheme weirdness I had to fix. I used to be on neovim, and that ecosystem compared to emacs feels like this image: https://i.imgflip.com/2pg2s7.jpg Some of it is the maintainer shielding us from the breaking changes,…

The irony is that the vim camp can use just the same "argument" here about emacs. So that is a weird comparison to want to make here. > The editor is older than most devs after all. Well, being old does not automatically mean better. Peak human physical performance typically happens, with some exceptions (Justin Gatlin, if we ignore the use of enhancement drugs) in younger years; see Usain Bolt's fastest time achieve…

The evidence of younger code being better than old one doesn’t pass the smell test, and it’s hard to prove in a nascent field of technology where the oldest piece of software in continuous use has barely reached middle age.

You just cannot compare software robustness to human lifespan. Does software need 3 years at the bare minimum to be self-sufficient? Does it become argumentative and crashes a lot after 13-14 years?

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#53

Post by michaelanckaert »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #45
michaelanckaert wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point of view, but as far as the Emacs community is concerned there is no problem. Emacs is not an editor. Emacs is not an IDE. Emacs is a platform to develop your own tooling. Text is the main interface Emacs offers. I don't speak for the Emacs community, there isn't even such a thing except maybe semi related groups that share viewpoints, usage and interests. But on the whole, I don't think the "E…

I generally agree. I look at Emacs like a lisp interpreter with text editing primitives on which someone has built a decent editor. There was a "community" about a decade or two ago. On Freenode IRC, there were regulars who hung around in #emacs and it was quite nice. There were no corporate sponsors or random startups trying to hire from there so it was genuinely just a bunch of people who enjoyed using Emacs and we…

There is still a "community" on platforms such as Mastodon, reddit, various repo's. But I don't think there is a single community that can be pointed to as "The Emacs community". This would also be "wrong" from a Libre Software point of view.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#54

Post by lycopodiopsida »

royal__ wrote: post #19
QwenGlazer9000 wrote: post #7

All the other comments in this thread talk about emacs instability when that hasn't been the case for me. I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works other than some color scheme weirdness I had to fix. I used to be on neovim, and that ecosystem compared to emacs feels like this image: https://i.imgflip.com/2pg2s7.jpg Some of it is the maintainer shielding us from the breaking changes,…

Can you explain more what's wrong with the Neovim ecosystem? I just switched from Doom Emacs to Neovim and my impression of Neovim has been much better. (I get that Emacs has a much more powerful backbone, I just realized that I didn't really need that power; I just want a good text editor)

I think a big difference is that in the end emacs often makes a call and adopts one of the very popular packages to the core - eglot, modus-themes, use-package - there are certainly more, and more will come. It may not make everyone happy, but is sets the baseline - e.g., I am using eglot as package manager, but I wrap it into use-package commands for compatibility reasons.

No such thing exist in neovim (or at least in times when I was using it), so that churn never ends. Also I find, that neovim ecosystem is concentrated on one (very productive) developer in an unhealthy manner - folke often takes time off and half the packages one uses stands still.

But in the end, while I like neovim, I also find that emacs ecosystem has better ideas - which-key, embark do not stop to amuse me (I will not comment on whether it is a good thing for a text editor). I also do not like lua and actively dislike the experience of debugging and configuring neovim with it (maybe less of an issue with LLM these days).

In my experience, running in a terminal absolutely adds a bunch of rendering/performance issues and all kind of surprising failures with hotkeys.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#55

Post by aktau »

royal__ wrote: post #19
QwenGlazer9000 wrote: post #7

All the other comments in this thread talk about emacs instability when that hasn't been the case for me. I'm on doom emacs, update once in a while, and everything mostly just works other than some color scheme weirdness I had to fix. I used to be on neovim, and that ecosystem compared to emacs feels like this image: https://i.imgflip.com/2pg2s7.jpg Some of it is the maintainer shielding us from the breaking changes,…

Can you explain more what's wrong with the Neovim ecosystem? I just switched from Doom Emacs to Neovim and my impression of Neovim has been much better. (I get that Emacs has a much more powerful backbone, I just realized that I didn't really need that power; I just want a good text editor)

I think Neovim itself has been stabilizing quite a bit in terms of upgrade breakage.

A common reason for breakage is/was:

  - Neovim changes some API (deprecating, ...).
  - User upgrades Neovim and theres some incompability, OR user upgrade plugin and that plugin assumes a much newer version of Neovim. (I've often seen Neovim plugins "mandate" either the latest stable Neovim or even HEAD).
But:

  1. Neovim has been including some popular plugins (or at least their functionality domain) in the past few years. This obviates the need for plugin-for-$THING, and reduces breakage.
  2. ISTM that the pace of (new) plugin development in the Neovim-sphere has slowed down.
The latest example of #1 is vim.pack, which is a plugin manager similar to vim-plug, mini.deps (vim.pack is based on mini.deps), lazy et cetera.

I can remember removing vim-commentary (from tpope) a while ago because Neovim included something like it in the main distribution. Granted, that specific plugin never broke because it uses the stable viml API.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#56

Post by internet_points »

TIL about ruler-mode; now I can delete my own half-assed implementation of the same.

And compare-windows looks really handy. I was about to write a note in my init file to my future self telling me to start using that, but then I saw there is already a note there from my past self, telling me about compare-windows.

scroll-all-mode seems useful, but it seems to only handle keyboard scrolling, not mouse-wheel?

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#57

Post by jr_isidore »

globular-toast wrote: post #18
buzzwords wrote: post #4

I saw orgmode once and I really loved it. Used Doomed and spacemacs. But dear Lord, does everything break on updates and need fixing. I had to give up as I just don't think it's feasible for me to fix my emacs when I want to get some work done.

What "updates" are you referring to? In more than 15 years of using Emacs I've not once been blocked from doing work due to any kind of breakage.

He means time passing, aka bitrot. Emacs is designed for quick hacks which often rely on filesystem and shell behaviors outside itself to remain constant.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#58

Post by jr_isidore »

kqr wrote: post #34
noelwelsh wrote: post #31

The biggest problem Emacs has will not be solved by blog posts like this. For most people the editor is a means to an end. They are invested in their end goal, not in hunting down blog posts telling them how to make better use of their tools. If Emacs wants wider adoption is needs a better out-of-the-box experience, which is something that distros like Doom Emacs and Spacemacs offer. That's the only way to make a den…

That would be a problem if the Emacs project needed to attract new users that aren't "the kind of person to invest time in" their editor. I'm not sure it does. Emacs has a healthy user base of people like you and I and appears to receive stable funding from the FSF. I don't see that changing any time soon. Emacs can be Emacs and be just fine the way it is. I will keep suggesting new users should aim to get as close t…

appears to receive stable funding from the FSF

No, about ten underemployed or semi-retired graybeards on the emacs.devel mailing list burn most of their waking hours futzing with emacs. That's not an exaggeration. They receive no remuneration.

Re: Even more batteries included with Emacs

#59

Post by gsinclair »

sph wrote: post #50
royal__ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain more what's wrong with the Neovim ecosystem? I just switched from Doom Emacs to Neovim and my impression of Neovim has been much better. (I get that Emacs has a much more powerful backbone, I just realized that I didn't really need that power; I just want a good text editor)

Neovim suffers from the Javascript kids mode of development. Constant change, constant churn, the mirage of stability always behind the corner, you always require third-party packages for functionality that should be core, completely erasing the Lindy effect of vim proper. It’s a bit sad Neovim has stolen the thunder from the original work of Moolenaar & co. My guess is that neovim will splinter itself down the line…

That’s a serious misreading of the NeoVim ecosystem, and I’d bet good money against your predictions coming true.
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