How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress • Hacker News Board

Re: How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress

#61

Post by bitwize » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:08 AM UTC

bjeds wrote: post #6

humanistbot wrote: post #4

When I was first getting into programming and computer science as a student, I was so into these kinds of super-customizable rabbit holes. My whole life pretty much centered around the keyboard and terminal. I was all in on knowing everything about the entire stack and making it do whatever it was I wanted. I'd spend hours to save a few keystrokes. That wasn't so much about the productivity trade-off as it was about…

In no way do I want to come off as rude with this comment, but to me what you are saying is not at all different from "when I was young I used to work out and eat healthy... a couple of decades later, I just fund it all so exhausting". Customizing your computer environment is good. Eating healthy is good. None of those need to end up in a "rabbit hole". Everyone can be tired of life and give up due to exhaustion, but…

Whoa. I had a brain wave.

What if there were a Silicon Valley company whose entire business model was selling a computing environment that didn't need to be customized? Like, at all? What if they did a whole bunch of psychological research, and found that most humans work pretty much the same way, and designed this environment in such a manner that they could get 98% or so of the way toward optimum productivity, right out of the box?

Knowing the Valley, they would give themselves a silly name, one having nothing to do with computers or data or anything. Like a fruit or something. But multiply the base price by billions of potential users... the idea could be worth trillions!

Re: How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress

#62

Post by grzm » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:38 AM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #20

Articles like this really trigger the imposter syndrome for me. I just have no patience for these type of things, and seeing others' both ability and patience to power through issues like this one, I just feel like an imposter. But these types of issues are why I've always given up on learning Emacs. When I can just install Visual Studio Code and the Remote - SSH extension and whatever else extension that I want to w…

I think it's great that we have such a variety of editors and IDEs to choose from and find one that meets best meets our individual needs. Over the years I've used BBEdit, TextMate, IntelliJ, and Emacs for development. For the past couple of years it's been switching between the last two. I'm glad you've found VS Code to be a match for you. I've spent time configuring all of them to aid in development.

ust like there's more than one hammer on the market, or more than one drill, each has its strengths and weaknesses. There have definitely been frustrating times configuring Emacs, but one of the reasons it's paid off over the years is that when I run into an issue, I can always dig into it and potentially fix it myself; and when I want to extend it to do sometime it can't do yet, I can do that, too.

It's an investment, but it's one that I think has paid off, and will continue to pay off. Emacs has been applicable in more situations and environments than those other tools. (IntelliJ's tooling has been useful, but I've also run into bugs that have impeded my work, which I can't fix on my own because the source isn't open.) I also do a lot of work in Clojure, so Emacs Lisp isn't much of a jump. Admittedly this might not be the case for everyone.

I think another big reason I've stuck with Emacs is that the cost of switching editors as they come along (I hear Atom is really nice, and people have been talking positively about Sublime for years) has a cost as well. Emacs is long in the tooth, which is a curse (Emacs Lisp is a really old lisp) and a blessing (it's unlikely to go away any time soon, and that time spent learning Emacs Lisp is going to continue to pay off).

Please don't read this as apologia for Emacs or as a criticism of your choice, as it's neither. I'm just trying to add some context to how others may justify the time they've spent customizing Emacs.

Re: How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress

#63

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:47 AM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #59

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear utterly convinced that VSCode will never demonstrate an obscure bug like the one discussed in TFA, or alternatively that if it does you'll be able to jump ship to some other tool. I don't share your confidence, and would prefer to know that such issues can be fixed with or without vendor participation.

There were two points in my comment. One was of feeling like an imposter, in that even as a software engineer I lack both the patience and skill to pull the debugging off the article showcased. It's both admiration and lament at the same time. The second point was that I personally prefer to altogether avoid issues like this if I can by selecting what I feel is the best available tool at the time. I have tried to use…

Your explanation involving containers/VMs makes a lot more sense to me than avoiding specific bugs when using Emacs' equivalent to VSCode's remoting extension.

As a purely native developer, I have zero use for such things, but I can certainly appreciate that VSCode may have done a much better (or certainly, shall we say, a less historically indebted) version of this sort of functionality than Emacs.

[ Edit: and yes, the featured article ]

Re: How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress

#64

Post by BeetleB » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:47 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #11

bjeds wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In no way do I want to come off as rude with this comment, but to me what you are saying is not at all different from "when I was young I used to work out and eat healthy... a couple of decades later, I just fund it all so exhausting". Customizing your computer environment is good. Eating healthy is good. None of those need to end up in a "rabbit hole". Everyone can be tired of life and give up due to exhaustion, but…

Or you can, you know, just use VSCode, have fun coding what you actually want to code and use that spare time: a) learning Spanish to talk to that hot chick/dude b) traveling around the world c) doing whatever else you love to do besides coding

Here are things listed in the article that one can do in Emacs [0]:

- process their email inbox

- communicate in chat

- navigate the web

- write code

- prose

- Creating a to-do item for something your partner just asked you (while you were concentrated on a task) that will show up automatically on your agenda tomorrow

- Converting some text notes you quickly scribbled down into a beautiful PDF via LaTeX, uploading it to S3, and referencing the URL in a reworded existing git commit message?

I could make the list much longer from my own experience, but this is just straight from the article.

I'm not a VSCode user, but I often hear about it only in a programming context, so it always surprises me when people suggest ditching Emacs to use VSCode.[1] I'm genuinely curious: How many of the above tasks are doable in VSCode? If not most of them, then I suggest people stop comparing the two programs - there is no point in asking people to stop using Emacs and use something that doesn't do what is needed.

If VSCode can do it, I'd love to look up the plugins/extensions needed.

[0] And many, many do it. I do over half of these things in Emacs (and most of the last item).

[1] Easily over 70% of my Emacs usage has nothing to do with programming.

Re: How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress

#65

Post by BeetleB » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:48 AM UTC

bjeds wrote: post #6

humanistbot wrote: post #4

When I was first getting into programming and computer science as a student, I was so into these kinds of super-customizable rabbit holes. My whole life pretty much centered around the keyboard and terminal. I was all in on knowing everything about the entire stack and making it do whatever it was I wanted. I'd spend hours to save a few keystrokes. That wasn't so much about the productivity trade-off as it was about…

In no way do I want to come off as rude with this comment, but to me what you are saying is not at all different from "when I was young I used to work out and eat healthy... a couple of decades later, I just fund it all so exhausting". Customizing your computer environment is good. Eating healthy is good. None of those need to end up in a "rabbit hole". Everyone can be tired of life and give up due to exhaustion, but…

I think a better analogy is:

> when I was young I used to work out and eat healthy at the level of an Olympic athlete ... a couple of decades later, I just fund it all so exhausting and don't do any exercise and eat only convenient packaged foods.

The original comment is arguing as if only these two extremes exist.

Re: How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress

#66

Post by BeetleB » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:55 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #26

guenthert wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200h is a lot if you think of Emacs as a tool to turn keystrokes into source code of your current project. I don't think it's a lot if you think of Emacs as a tool to help realize the ideas of your lifetime.

Summarizing: everything you do takes time and this time has an associated opportunity cost. If you can configure another tool in 2-5-10 hours to achieve 90% of the efficiency Emacs gives you and you can use the other 190-195-198 hours to actually realize those "ideas of your lifetime", it is a lot of time spent (and maybe wasted). Also: https://xkcd.com/1205/ + tinkering isn't necessarily productivity. If anything, i…

> If you can configure another tool in 2-5-10 hours to achieve 90% of the efficiency Emacs gives you

There's no way any other program will give you 90% of what Emacs does in a mere 10 hours. Not. A. Chance.

See this list of things people do in Emacs from an earlier comment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627763

These are what the author mentioned. From my own usage, I can easily make the list 3x longer. Emacs is an application platform for Elisp apps. Your statement is the equivalent of saying "Just spend 10 hours learning VBA and you'll get 90% of the benefits you got from years of practicing C."

Re: How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress

#67

Post by Zelphyr » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:30 AM UTC

humanistbot wrote: post #4

When I was first getting into programming and computer science as a student, I was so into these kinds of super-customizable rabbit holes. My whole life pretty much centered around the keyboard and terminal. I was all in on knowing everything about the entire stack and making it do whatever it was I wanted. I'd spend hours to save a few keystrokes. That wasn't so much about the productivity trade-off as it was about…

This describes why I have had a Mac for the last 20 years. I used to build my own machines (before laptops really became commonplace, of course) and then install Linux. I loved the learning experience and the almost total control over my system that such an exercise provided.

After awhile I realized I just wanted to write code and not have maintaining my system take time away from that. The fact that the Mac provided easy access to Unix was a major plus. Also, at the time, none of the Linux desktop environments could match the polish that the OS X GUI provided.

I've been saddened and frustrated by the state of macOS of late (hopefully Big Sur is better) but I'm still not ready to go back to the old days. As you say; it just sounds exhausting.

Re: How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress

#68

Post by dleslie » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:47 AM UTC

Zelphyr wrote: post #67

humanistbot wrote: post #4

When I was first getting into programming and computer science as a student, I was so into these kinds of super-customizable rabbit holes. My whole life pretty much centered around the keyboard and terminal. I was all in on knowing everything about the entire stack and making it do whatever it was I wanted. I'd spend hours to save a few keystrokes. That wasn't so much about the productivity trade-off as it was about…

This describes why I have had a Mac for the last 20 years. I used to build my own machines (before laptops really became commonplace, of course) and then install Linux. I loved the learning experience and the almost total control over my system that such an exercise provided. After awhile I realized I just wanted to write code and not have maintaining my system take time away from that. The fact that the Mac provided…

FWIW, System 76 devices are fantastic out-of-the-box.

I'm typing this on a Pinebook Pro which, at least in my experience, has basically been zero-configuration with the default Manjaro release.

Ok, I lie, I added an m.2 ssd to it. But that's about it!

Re: How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress

#69

Post by bitwize » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

Thrymr wrote: post #8

bjeds wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In no way do I want to come off as rude with this comment, but to me what you are saying is not at all different from "when I was young I used to work out and eat healthy... a couple of decades later, I just fund it all so exhausting". Customizing your computer environment is good. Eating healthy is good. None of those need to end up in a "rabbit hole". Everyone can be tired of life and give up due to exhaustion, but…

It feels a little closer to "when I was young, I used to spend so much time arranging my kitchen gadgets [or exercise equipment]". Not doing the useful part of it, but frittering around the edges.

And yet articles called "Always Be Knolling" bubble to the top of Hackernews...

Re: How to open a file in Emacs: a story about Lisp, technology, and human progress

#70

Post by jcranmer » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #64

oblio wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can, you know, just use VSCode, have fun coding what you actually want to code and use that spare time: a) learning Spanish to talk to that hot chick/dude b) traveling around the world c) doing whatever else you love to do besides coding

Here are things listed in the article that one can do in Emacs [0]: - process their email inbox - communicate in chat - navigate the web - write code - prose - Creating a to-do item for something your partner just asked you (while you were concentrated on a task) that will show up automatically on your agenda tomorrow - Converting some text notes you quickly scribbled down into a beautiful PDF via LaTeX, uploading it…

> [0] And many, many do it. I do over half of these things in Emacs (and most of the last item).

And very probably, many, many, many more don't. (This is what telemetry is good for--actually telling you how many people use various functionality in your product). Somewhat more than half of my coworkers use emacs for their daily coding, and exactly 0 of them use it for anything other than a programming editor.