Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Use GNU Emacs

www2.lib.uchicago.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 301 posts

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#91

Post by asoneth »

charcircuit wrote: post #30

Emacs is software from the 80s that failed to adapt to the current times. It failed to innovate and address UX issues so its market share devoured.

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 being niche.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#92

Post by neilv »

Emacs is great, but I don't advocate it anymore, even though it still has some great merits.

The main reason is that I'm concerned that we've lost ground on some very important ideas, for which we should've done a better job onboarding new techies in the last decade or two: open standards, open source, libre software, privacy, information security, etc.

There's vague stereotypes that I've seen newbies use to dismiss those ideas, bundling concern about those ideas in with "tells you that you should use Emacs" (or Vim). Which then discredits the whole basket at once.

So I'll just say it: The typical techie will probably be happier using an editor/IDE other than Emacs.

But it's important for our field and broader society that most techies learn and care about those other ideas.

(Disclosure: https://www.neilvandyke.org/emacs/ )

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#93

Post by logicchains »

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.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#94

Post by gpderetta »

charcircuit wrote: post #30

Emacs is software from the 80s that failed to adapt to the current times. It failed to innovate and address UX issues so its market share devoured.

Market share is not a feature that helps me. A thriving ecosystem and active development is. Emacs doesn't lack either.

Failing to implement UX fad of the moment means that you can rely on the GUI being consistent across years instead of having to relearn it every few months.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#95

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

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've been using Emacs for 25 years, and I use a stock install and I never even touch the .emacs file.

It's just a text editor. For many tasks it has better usability than the competition. This is why I use it. (Not for everything, though, and that's okay.)

I'd guess most people are like me. Configuring text editors is not our hobby.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#96

Post by jamespo »

One feature I particularly like in emacs is "chord mode". You can bind double keystrokes to features, eg I have @@ to save file. I haven't noticed this available in other editors.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#97

Post by _y5hn »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #95
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've been using Emacs for 25 years, and I use a stock install and I never even touch the .emacs file. It's just a text editor. For many tasks it has better usability than the competition. This is why I use it. (Not for everything, though, and that's okay.) I'd guess most people are like me. Configuring text editors is not our hobby.

Spacemacs got lots configured out of the box, which allows to keep this workflow but still not miss out on much.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#98

Post by adastra22 »

soraminazuki wrote: post #90
adastra22 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get better hardware? Don't go cheap on your development system. I'm on an Apple M1 device and have barely noticed it.

Also get a portable power station too, to deal with battery life. ... or just don't run dozens of browsers on battery-powered devices.

8 hours battery while doing heavy development on apple silicon hardware, while being the fastest mobile dev machine I've ever owned. Seriously not an issue.

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#99

Post by yunruse »

jamespo wrote: post #96

One feature I particularly like in emacs is "chord mode". You can bind double keystrokes to features, eg I have @@ to save file. I haven't noticed this available in other editors.

VS Code has this built in.

I personally have a set of ⌘N and ⌘W chords [0] for various creations and deletions. ⌘W S to close all saved files is a particular favourite; I don't really pay particular attention to my tabs anymore (just open on the filespace), which is one less thing to think about when coding.

[0] https://github.com/yunruse/.config/blob/zsh/vscode/keybindin...

Re: Use GNU Emacs

#100

Post by quanticle »

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.

    requires barely any ram
It's incredible to me that our tools have bloated to the point where we look at Emacs and think, "Ah yes, what a svelte program!"
Post reply on HN