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Use GNU Emacs

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Re: Use GNU Emacs

#281

Post by 70rd »

Remember to contribute money/time if you love and use emacs!

Microsoft recently cancelled PayPal for Github sponsors and Tarsius lost significant amounts of income (that was already below minimum wage)[1].

A small contribution, the price of a coffee a week, which for successful developers is very little, goes a long way in supporting open source that doesn't have extensive corporate support like chromium/linux/docker.

https://magit.vc/donate/ https://liberapay.com/hlissner/donate https://liberapay.com/bzg/ (org-mode maintainer) https://www.patreon.com/sanityinc (MELPA) https://github.com/freetonik/support-emacs-community-devs (other good list)

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/11cezoq/magit_mainta...

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#282

Post by __david__ »

noloblo wrote: post #276
__david__ wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting up emacs server is as easy as: alias emacs='emacsclient -c -nw -a ""' Seriously, that's it!

Why is an emacs server needed

It makes launching emacs practically instant because it’s always running in the background—emacsclient connects to the already running instance so you get to skip the startup process.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#283

Post by [deleted] »

__david__ wrote: post #148
loup-vaillant wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One gripe I have with Emacs is that it doesn't boot instantly enough. Annoys me every time I edit a Git commit message. Though it's not horrible enough that I found the courage to set up an Emacs server, as easy as it is… Anyway, it would be nice if it could just boot instantly by default.

Setting up emacs server is as easy as: alias emacs='emacsclient -c -nw -a ""' Seriously, that's it!

[deleted]

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#284

Post by saeranv »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #257
saeranv wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Emacs/vim's fantastic buffer/window concept, where open files are not owned by their windows. I miss this whenever I use anything else. Why is this useful? I basically treat my nvim buffers like windows. What am I missing?

Because you can look at and maniuplate the same file n different ways. Something I sorely lack when using e.g. visual studio

I guess I need to experiment with this. I'm fairly conservative when it comes to experimenting with files since I find it always ends up triggering .swp file recoveries, which is not just annoying[1], but has also resulted in me accidently losing work before.

[1] Why can't we just delete the extra file after we recovered the .swp!

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#285

Post by asoneth »

charcircuit wrote: post #129
asoneth wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Emacs commits a number of unforced errors with regard to its user experience, especially for novice users. My guess is that with some usability studies they could flatten the learning curve substantially and significantly increase their market share with only minimal burden on existing users. Having said that, "market share" doesn't seem like a relevant metric since the community seems perfectly content…

>since the community seems perfectly content being niche. This is just admitting defeat. There is no reason Emacs couldn't be the number one editor right now. GNU projects in general all tend to fail to innovate and seem to ignore the last couple of decades of learnings.

> There is no reason Emacs couldn't be the number one editor right now

I suspect you're right that under different stewardship Emacs could have taken over the wold. And who knows, if they cared to run usability studies on the initial user experience it might still be possible.

> This is just admitting defeat

If you assume that everyone values popularity or ease-of-use then this is a reasonable conclusion.

But if you'd forgive some unsolicited advice: assuming everyone shares your values will make it hard to understand or predict other people's actions which will hinder your attempts to communicate, negotiate, or manage anyone not like you. It may be simpler to imagine they're crazy, foolish, or deluded but personally I've found it useful to operate under the assumption that their values are real and just as valid as mine.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#286

Post by 3836293648 »

logicchains wrote: post #93
worldsayshi wrote: post #13

I used Emacs for a while and now I use Intellij. Now I don't understand the appeal of customizing the editor to such degree. I'm not that unique. I just want stuff that works. Give me the same setup as everyone else so that when issues arise everyone will push for them to get fixed and everyone can help each other.

I use vanilla Emacs for everything. For me customisation isn't what matters, it's having an editor that will never lag, requires barely any ram, and can be used over SSH on pretty much any machine.

> will never lag

Why are you using emacs, then? Emacs GC pauses are awful. The input lag is on par with vsc. There is work being done on both, but right now it's terrible.

I'm just here because I want buffers that can be scaled individually along with good vi-emulation. I'll never pretend that the performance is any good

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#287

Post by ParetoOptimal »

crabbone wrote: post #273
ParetoOptimal wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This clearly shows you've never used the program you are so confidently talking about... What tabs? lol, quick to go for the jab mister crab. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Ta... Specifically I use https://github.com/mclear-tools/tabspaces

What's the connection? There are plenty of ways of managing multiple buffers, and tabs is... just one of them, and, it's just not good... Complaining about it just means you don't understand how to use the editor you are complaining about. These tabs are for people who come from another editor and think they need tabs. Similar to how you can have scrollbars or panels with buttons to do things in Emacs, but they aren'…

There are plenty of ways of managing multiple buffers, and tabs is... just one of them, and, it's just not good... Complaining about it just means you don't understand how to use the editor you are complaining about. These tabs are for people who come from another editor and think they need tabs. Similar to how you can have scrollbars or panels with buttons to do things in Emacs, but they aren't there to improve editing experience, they are there to help the inexperienced to transfer their experience from other editors onto the new one.

> What's the connection? > Complaining about it just means you don't understand how to use the editor you are complaining about.

I must admit, I'm pretty confused here.

I'm not complaining about tabs?

> There are plenty of ways of managing multiple buffers, and tabs is... just one of them, and, it's just not good

What do you use for managing multiple buffers? Do you not care about distinguishing one projects buffers from any other project?

> These tabs are for people who come from another editor and think they need tabs.

The tabs in emacs are different than the ones in vscode. In emacs terms there is only one window containing one buffer you cannot change per tab.

tab == buffer in vscode

> Similar to how you can have scrollbars or panels with buttons to do things in Emacs, but they aren't there to improve editing experience, they are there to help the inexperienced to transfer their experience from other editors onto the new one.

I used to think this, but my mind was changed after seeing many experienced emacs users that do prefer using scrollbars, buttons, or the new context-menu-mode.

emacs is about freedom in a lot of ways including how you use emacs, not some "ur a noob if you use the mouse" type thing.

> they are there to help the inexperienced to transfer their experience from other editors onto the new one.

People vary. For someone disabled, it's possible that in many scenarios using the mouse is faster for them than the keyboard. So the fact they use the mouse doesn't make them inexperienced.

There is utility in these features and they don't purely exist to bridge the gap for new users coming into emacs.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#288

Post by steponlego »

These days what Emacs doesn’t have can be as important as what it does have. It doesn’t have Chrome bloat. And it has no telemetry whatsoever. Telemetry should be de-normalized. It’s an affront.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#289

Post by steponlego »

taeric wrote: post #203
xlii wrote: post #37

I’ve been using Emacs for ~15 years right now, but I don’t recommend it for the last few. I love it, it’s great, and as many others, I tried to move out of it but there was something I couldn’t do I KNEW I could get in Emacs and it frustrated me so much I kept going back. But I don’t think it brings a lot of added value. There are many very very powerful IDEs and editors which offer out of the box great UX and featur…

I know you are doing a more vague accusation, but I don't appreciate being cast as bullying people into using Emacs. :) (Smile is intentional, not trying to be aggressive here.) There is an odd aggression against Emacs that typically does lead to people having to go to extra effort to justify why they use it. And I can agree many of the justifications can feel like a stretch. They aren't false, though. Nor are we wor…

Emacs has the best tutorial. It’s built in. And once you’ve completed it you are ready to use the whole system. Then you read the elisp intro and bam, you’re extending your editor. You can easily tackle both documents in a day.

No other editor comes with such a good tutorial.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#290

Post by crabbone »

ParetoOptimal wrote: post #287
crabbone wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the connection? There are plenty of ways of managing multiple buffers, and tabs is... just one of them, and, it's just not good... Complaining about it just means you don't understand how to use the editor you are complaining about. These tabs are for people who come from another editor and think they need tabs. Similar to how you can have scrollbars or panels with buttons to do things in Emacs, but they aren'…

There are plenty of ways of managing multiple buffers, and tabs is... just one of them, and, it's just not good... Complaining about it just means you don't understand how to use the editor you are complaining about. These tabs are for people who come from another editor and think they need tabs. Similar to how you can have scrollbars or panels with buttons to do things in Emacs, but they aren't there to improve edit…

> What do you use for managing multiple buffers?

Ibuffer

Some people use Helm or Projectile. There's a whole section in the Wiki about it: https://wikemacs.org/wiki/Buffer_management

> The tabs in emacs are different than the ones in vscode.

Just forget tabs exist in Emacs. Like I said, they are for people who are used to have tabs, but serve no purpose if you use Emacs. It's like if you were trying to use Photoshop to run unit tests for some JavaScript code you wrote for Web browser. Yeah, it has a built-in JavaScript interpreter, but really, it's not meant to be used as a JavaScript runtime.

> tab == buffer in vscode

Not sure what you are trying to say... Do you mean a "tab" in VSCode terminology is equivalent to "buffer" in Emacs terminology? -- If so, that's not true. VSCode has a number of fixed windows, which cannot have interchangeable contents. It has a window dedicated to showing text files, it has a window dedicated to interaction with shells, it has a window dedicated to interaction with filesystem etc. While this is really inconvenient and the lack of generic approach is really hurting due to inconsistencies between these windows, that's how they chose to do it.

> I used to think this, but my mind was changed after seeing many experienced emacs users that do prefer using scrollbars

I haven't met a single Emacs user who'd use scrollbars. I probably met about 2-3 dozens. Most wouldn't even know what they look like. Scrollbars aren't well-integrated into the rest of interaction with the program. It's a handicap if you use them. I cannot think about a single reason, a single situation in which scrollbars would be preferable to other methods of navigation. They are less precise, slower and in some cases impossible to implement (eg. infinite buffers).

Freedom and being a noob are orthogonal to each other. I didn't say you should never use scrollbars. I said that if you are a noob, that's what you will likely end up using... I don't say you shouldn't be a noob, I just say that being a noob sucks.

> For someone disabled

And for some who don't have hands, it's even worse... what's your point? There's the reality of text editors: if you have two functioning hands, you are in a very advantageous situation compared to someone who doesn't. Comparing the two doesn't make sense in the same way how it doesn't make sense to let super-heavy-weight boxers compete with light-weight boxers.That's why those categories were created in the first place.

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