Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
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Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
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Re: Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
#2Emacs is one of those things everybody knows is good, but few take the time to learn.
Over the years I've learnt quite a few languages, and what strikes me is that they're all so very alike. You find the same features with slight syntactic changes. At the end of the day, what really makes a difference is not which language you chose but what tools you are using. Do you have to memorize every important method or are they helping you find the documentation? What happens when something is a little broken, wait for a fix or patch the code immediately? Give up and live with it?
With Emacs, the languages change but the tool stays the same, you just extend it. In a way akin to how programming enhances my mind to be able to solve tough problems, emacs enhances my capacity to hack by letting me hack the tool itself.
Having a userbase made of people hardcore enough to learn some Lisp so they can hack their tool is just a bonus. Please keep fearing the parens!
Emacs is still being actively developed, v24.4 is in feature freeze: https://github.com/mirrors/emacs/blob/master/etc/NEWS (that's 1200+ lines of changelog for 24.4)
How many pieces of software can you name that have been around for 36 years and are still kicking? Do you think it has something to do with Lisp?
Re: Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
#3Hmm, I am probably missing something, but isn't Igor from Mary Shelley (Frankensteins assistant)?
Re: Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
#4Hmm, I am probably missing something, but isn't Igor from Mary Shelley (Frankensteins assistant)?
From the article:
"This really reminds me of Terry Pratchett’s Igor clan. I discovered this amiable race in The Fifth Elephant. Igors are a people inspired from the typical hunchbacked Igor archetype, but in Discworld, they are also self-modifiers. Their bodies consist of mixed and matched and patched and swapped body parts among other members of their clan, of scars and self-adjustements. They are infinitely self-improving, self-experimenting. They might end up with a botched job and have to hobble around for a few days, but in the end it’s always fixable.
And they lisp."
Re: Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
#5Hmm, I am probably missing something, but isn't Igor from Mary Shelley (Frankensteins assistant)?
Yes, you're missing something. You need to read some Terry Pratchett. There are several entry points to the canon, some better suited than others to different readers. The Igors first arrive in The Fifth Elephat, or possibly Thief Of Time.
As an entry point (but without the Igors (yet)) I recommend "Guards! Guards!", YMMV.
Re: Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
#6Emacs is one of those things everybody knows is good, but few take the time to learn. Over the years I've learnt quite a few languages, and what strikes me is that they're all so very alike. You find the same features with slight syntactic changes. At the end of the day, what really makes a difference is not which language you chose but what tools you are using. Do you have to memorize every important method or are t…
With Emacs, the languages change but the tool stays the same, you just extend it. In a way akin to how programming enhances my mind to be able to solve tough problems, emacs enhances my capacity to hack by letting me hack the tool itself.
Oblig reference to classic essay on that topic:
Re: Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
#7Emacs is one of those things everybody knows is good, but few take the time to learn. Over the years I've learnt quite a few languages, and what strikes me is that they're all so very alike. You find the same features with slight syntactic changes. At the end of the day, what really makes a difference is not which language you chose but what tools you are using. Do you have to memorize every important method or are t…
Learning something that takes time should be seen as investment. If you invest your time and effort, you want to know that your investment pays dividends in the future.
I feel that Emacs is one of those tools where my investment is safe and the code I write to ~/.emacs produces huge value over several decades. It's not going away. Development community is so big that it supports all new stuff that comes along.
Re: Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
#8I'm a recovering Emacser, happy enough with less powerful but more modern text editors. It wasn't the program or the UI that finally did me in, but the community: I had a problem with how Emacs worked, I wanted to figure out a solution, so I asked on #emacs on Freenode and got nothing but abuse. I realised there's something about Emacs that attracts the sort of users I don't want to associate with: people who are smug, self-absorbed and utterly without empathy. Did I want to be one of them? No, I did not. Did I want to have to rely on them for help in my work and play? No, I did not. So I found a text editor that has sufficient extensibility and I installed that, and uninstalled all the emacsen on all my machines. And I felt a lot better afterward.
Re: Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
#9I'm a recovering Emacser, happy enough with less powerful but more modern text editors. It wasn't the program or the UI that finally did me in, but the community: I had a problem with how Emacs worked, I wanted to figure out a solution, so I asked on #emacs on Freenode and got nothing but abuse. I realised there's something about Emacs that attracts the sort of users I don't want to associate with: people who are smu…
They probably tried to make a common point: do not give the solution. For a given specific issue, the most you should give is pointers.
For the function that solves your problem saves the day but knowing how to find any when needed solves a lifetime of problems. Pointers help to put you on the right track so you're not discouraged.
Re: Emacs users are like Terry Pratchett’s Igors
#10Hmm, I am probably missing something, but isn't Igor from Mary Shelley (Frankensteins assistant)?
"Igor" as Dr. Frankenstein's assistant achieved prominence through Bela Lugosi's portrayal of the character "Ygor" in the film "The Ghost of Frankenstein". (No character named "Igor" appears in Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus".)
"Igors" are a community of folks within the fictional "Discworld" universe created by author Terry Pratchet. Dr. Frankenstein's assistant is merely a lab assistant. Igors on Discworld are folks who remake themselves by way of transplants, as described in the article.