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Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

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Re: Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

#101

Post by keithnz »

keithnz wrote: post #79
mchaver wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without telling us what kind of code you are talking about it is hard to compare. I would say that is true for CRUD web code because there is so much out there that the LLMs can reference.

I work on all sorts as we have an IoT product offering.... embedded bare metal systems, web, backend IoT servers, Gateways, APIs, Import/Export Systems, Integrations with Manufacturing systems, accounting systems, Automatic Test Equipment. I've been coding for nearly 50 years now, so pretty experienced. What peoples comments seem to imply to me is that they haven't really gone full agentic coding, where you hone your…

gdorsi , it's not that hard to swap really, because the goal, designing systems, just got easier. I feel AI lets you be a system engineer way better as you can quickly iterate. I have the same kinds of goals in mind, just can do it a heck of a lot quicker.

Re: Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

#102

Post by armchairhacker »

jnpnj wrote: post #69
armchairhacker wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI can generate code much much faster. But do you never need a specific change (e.g. bugfix), that even describing in English is slower than just doing it? Especially in vim where editor movements are fast.

Anybody using cursor or antigravity ? I tried them a bit and often they can infer immense amount of ideas from the immediate source context and suggest paragraph patches semantically close to what I had in mind from just one word. Saying this as a vi/emacs user who liked to automate via macros, snippets, dynamic overlay inserts and what not.. I still enjoy being sharp on a keyboard and navigating source / branches sw…

I’m using Sweep autocomplete, which is like Cursor’s but in JetBrains, and it’s very good. Most of the time, I start the change and Sweep finishes it. Sometimes for larger changes, it initially has the wrong idea, but as I continue it eventually figures out what I’m doing.

Unfortunately they’re sunsetting it, ironically apparently because people aren’t using it. I think it’s strange this hasn’t been posted to HN. They say they will release an open-source local version; otherwise I’ll have to figure out an alternative, because it really saves time and effort…

Re: Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

#103

Post by mark_l_watson »

Nice writeup! The list of Emacs packages to use LLMs is the roadmap for getting started with AI Emacs integrations and I also liked his list of AI dangers at the end.

I have used Emacs for over 40 years but I found myself getting sucked into the black hole of VSCode as discussed in the article. When I bought a new MacBook a few months ago, I only installed Emacs, no VSCode, and so far that is working out for me.

Also, after many hours of experimenting with AI packages for Emacs, I have reverted to keeping Emacs mostly a pure human activity, and several times a week have sessions with gemini-cli and Claude Code when I want an AI coding assistant. This is just for me, not general advice, but I like to separate use of AI from my regular coding and writing workflows. I use AI for coding cumulatively about three or four hours a week.

Re: Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

#105

Post by bozhidar »

operatingthetan wrote: post #19
stephc_int13 wrote: post #18

How much of this article was AI written? I can sense the AI smell all over the place, also I found it way too long with little substance, but maybe that’s just me.

At this point a lot of the articles on this site are just a 'prompt' for us to have a discussion about.

Well put! To me - it always felt like this here. I have serious doubts that most people even read the articles linked to HN discussions.

Re: Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

#106

Post by mark_l_watson »

hbogert wrote: post #84
xenodium wrote: post #62

I put off adopting popular agents for most of 2025 primarily because there was no agent-agnostic path to first-class Emacs integration. That changed with ACP ( https://agentclientprotocol.com ), thus I started working on agent-shell. I'm happy with how the integration is shaping up, enabling me to have my cake and eat it too (Emacs + AI agents). I wrote an agent-shell post recently with the latest changes https://xen…

You have Every right to plug your agentshell here. I love it and I don't even care that much for agents (yet)

I agree, agentshell is a nice way to chat with LLMs. Well worth setting up. Emacs eye candy.

Re: Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

#107

Post by bozhidar »

acron0 wrote: post #27
stephc_int13 wrote: post #18

How much of this article was AI written? I can sense the AI smell all over the place, also I found it way too long with little substance, but maybe that’s just me.

Bozhidar always writes like this. I can see why you would think it's AI style but I would vote that it isn't. Look at some of his pre-AI blogs, if you care to.

Guilty as charged! :D Short essays are definitely not my forte. (and this one is definitely longer than I wanted it to be, but in my typical style I kept adding to it after I wrote the initial version, and I'll probably add even more content after I go over all the discussion here)

Re: Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

#108

Post by himata4113 »

I swapped from jetbrains products to lazyvim/nvim and honestly without AI it would have not been possible. The speed I was able to configure it exactly how I wanted and support workflows jetbrains would never support is great.

Escaping the god awful AI implementations in both vscode and jetbrains product is also a refresher. They don't know what the ** is going on, they don't know what users want, but I do and AI being able to extend my IDE in a way that helps me be more productive is very undervalued.

Re: Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

#109

Post by skydhash »

keithnz wrote: post #82
1718627440 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the point. It takes more time to write English prose than to open a file and just fix it, so unless the time the LLM needs is somehow negative, it's not going to be faster.

I didn't miss the point, it just feels like the people saying that really aren't using these tools as it just is not my experience at all. I've been a Vim user for multi decades now. There's just no way, it's far easier to type a prompt except maybe if you know exactly what file and exactly where in the file, you might be able to do it as fast as telling the AI to do it. It's not hard to get a minor fix done with a p…

Maybe it’s hormones, but time flies when you do edit with Vim or Emacs. It’s like playing on a piano. But using AI is like listening critically to someone playing trying to find mistakes. And that’s boring as hell.

Re: Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

#110

Post by skydhash »

johanvts wrote: post #24
szopa wrote: post #17

I have been a die hard emacs user for 20 years, and I have a very nice emacs setup (if a little bit idiosyncratic, but all emacs configs are idiosyncratic). However, recently I realized that I read code, but almost never write it. What is more, I spend a lot of time doing it in tmux, over mosh, from my phone. Emacs ergonomy is just not great if all you have is a horrible phone keyboard (and no swiping, because tmux r…

Emacs has multicursor, lsp and treesitter so from just reading the helix landing page idk what you gain? Bat sounds interesting, thanks.

What I like about Emacs (which has made me switch from Vim) is the sheer amount of tools you have by default. Vim can have something similar, but you have to do a lot of config or install plugins to get them.
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