Live data from Hacker News

In Emacs, everything looks like a service

yummymelon.com

121–127 of 127 posts

Re: In Emacs, everything looks like a service

#121
post #54
post #27

I've been an Emacs user for over 25 years. But last year I switched employers and they won't let me use it even for tasks where it would absolutely shine. Their argument is that all team members should use the same tools, and I guess that is a valid point. Unfortunately, I failed to convince my employer to make everybody else switch to Emacs. So, now I'm using lots of one-purpose tools, one for each separate task, a…

Emacs users (myself included) would feel less like cramming every aspect of our work into Emacs if more tools embodied the freedom and hackability that comes with using Emacs. It's not that Emacs is better, it's that other tools are more restrictive and not self-documenting.

That, and also the fact that everything is well-integrated and interoperable, allowing a more seamless interaction between the different tools.

Re: In Emacs, everything looks like a service

#122
post #90
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was just an example. The point of the parent is that in an ideal situation, where everything works without flaw, theoretically it makes no difference which tools everyone uses. In real life, you having a homogeneous setup across a team makes the sysadmin's job a lot easier.

But sysadmins should be there to deploy stuff and make sure the infra does its job, not get bogged down handholding some dev that can't even compile a project.

I've worked at more than one place where administration and sys admins were the ones calling the shots. Certainly not the people actually producing stuff.

Re: In Emacs, everything looks like a service

#123
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the job is so good as to make you tolerate this?

Taken a look at the job market lately? Unless you’re like the top 1% (which most people aren’t), it’s extremely bleak.

Plus, I'm not very hirable to begin with, having wasted most of my professional life in academia.

Re: In Emacs, everything looks like a service

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a company I work for, they are doing various changes (and control) over the software we install as we transition to a larger company. I believe they are using Microsoft Intune so they can allow/deny what can be installed. I have not updated my laptop (or got a new one) because I am concerned they will not allow me to install or continue to use Emacs. Honestly, I can vision how that conversation goes:- [manager]: H…

Over the past 15 years, I worked for 4 different companies in 4 different industries and I never had any trouble getting Emacs approved. They were all rather smallish, always around 200 employees, though.

The company I work for is pretty much washing its hands and going with off-the-shelf solutions, instead.

We are transitioning into a role that's mostly extending a main business software internally and externally. Externally it is using Logic Apps or Power Automate or Power Apps, etc.

With this, the "core" tools we are using are no longer needed in the minds of upper management, which is why I am concerned changing laptops that are fully setup with Intune.

This is also why in my meetings with management they are subtly suggesting software well before we move onto these modern projects - as if I wont understand what they doing.

technically we are still developers but not the way we were originally hired, and I am confused how we are going to hire new staff in this area... and the type of skills we require.

With all the above, I can see them being difficult with Emacs and other software I use.

Re: In Emacs, everything looks like a service

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a company I work for, they are doing various changes (and control) over the software we install as we transition to a larger company. I believe they are using Microsoft Intune so they can allow/deny what can be installed. I have not updated my laptop (or got a new one) because I am concerned they will not allow me to install or continue to use Emacs. Honestly, I can vision how that conversation goes:- [manager]: H…

Start sending out your resume and reaching out to your network about other jobs. Any company that anally controls every last software developers can install is a dead man walking. At least the software development part of the company. Getting up to speed on new tools and new technologies is essential to the job of software development. Projects will grind to a halt and fail to deliver, but the management will never u…

Hi jimbokun

Thank you for your message. I appreciate you going out of your way and showing care for others - in this case my career.

I have updated my resume and looking.

I have a couple of years left in order to look after (what I now call) our legacy software, which we wrote, until we move over 100% with the new tools. It is dead end as a software engineer and don't intend to fall behind.

Re: In Emacs, everything looks like a service

#126
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bash is a shell refugee in Unixland. It doesn't follow the Unix philosophy, it follows the Shell philosophy. But it integrates. Why do you say such silly things?

Unix philosophy clearly favors and privileges certain methods of composition and interoperation. C-calls, program invocation, files and sockets/pipes. Calls inside various vms like lisp, java, python or wasm are not among those.

Emacs is a more usable interface to all those methods of composition than, say, a terminal emulator. Take dired for example; it presents the verbatim output of the ls command but allows me to interact with it in a much smoother way to rename, copy, and run arbitrary shell commands on them.

Why is it acceptable to compose simple modular tools in a bash script but not in an Emacs script?

Re: In Emacs, everything looks like a service

#127
post #6

> A common refrain is that Emacs is an operating system (OS). This isn’t true, but what invites comparison to an OS is its ability to orchestrate applications and utilities above the OS kernel level. Only because Lisp Machines, or variations thereof didn't took off in the mainstream. "Symbolics Lisp Machine demo" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk "Emacs and Lisp" https://funcall.blogspot.com/2025/04/emacs-a…

> Only because Lisp Machines, or variations thereof didn't took off in the mainstream

It apparently turned out that it was more efficient to compile Lisp to a "normal" CPU instead of using an expensive custom non-generic "Lisp" CPU.

Post reply on HN