6 ms·

If only there was an editor which could act as an interpreter for Lisp directly ...

pdimitar 1y ago
Wake me up when its authors realize most of us don't want to "hack" our editors. They're still stuck in 1980. We actually have to pay bills and want to spend time with our families and go out in nature. I appreciate customization; that's why I moved to Neovim and not to a full-blown GUI IDE (and I'll never use those). But that editor you speak of practically requires me to fix the idiocies of plugin authors that can't be bothered to run 7 tests on their code. I get it, a lot of programmers are cult followers. I was as well. At one point though, pragmatism should prevail. The editor should ideally be non-laggy and not spit warnings after I move from one buffer to another. Just embarrassing.
- Zambyte 1y ago
  I haven't really touched my emacs config in years. I just set it up how I wanted and now I use it to pay my bills. It sounds like the flexibility was just too tempting for you to not hack on it when you should be doing other things.
  - pdimitar 1y ago
    I have set it up 50 times and it crapped the bed every time. Before anyone yells "skill issue!", I'll say that if any plugin author can make the editor crap the bed, then the editor is not good. There are degrees to freedom. Complete freedom in such environments is a liability, not an asset. Say hi to the others in the ivory tower. And remind them not to do selective omissions in their supposed counter-arguments to "win" an argument, and that it's a cheap tactic.
    - WhatIsDukkha 1y ago
      I have about 140 Emacs plugins running. I've never had to declare Emacs bankruptcy. 10 years of good times with Emacs+evil and 35 years of vim. Fwiw.
      - pdimitar 1y ago
        Sadly that's not worth anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anecdotal evidence in both directions. I had a soft spot for Emacs for a _long_ time (almost two decades)... FWIW. ;) Key word: had.
        worthless-trash 1y ago
        Now you're living life large with jetbrains and making the big bucks !
        pdimitar 1y ago
        Nope. Neovim. And even there some of the "distros" got on my nerves. I guess at one point I'll just learn Neovim's API and make my own blend like everyone else. NOT looking forward to it. But I suppose there's no other way. I still view Neovim as a huge improvement over Emacs though.
        iLemming 1y ago
        > I still view Neovim as a huge improvement Neovim unlike Emacs is an editor. Emacs is not a mere code editor, not an IDE, text-processor, or web-browser. Emacs first and foremost is a Lisp REPL, with a built-in text-editor. Without deeply understanding that aspect one can never truly appreciate the incredible power it grants you. Do you use your editor to read and annotate pdfs? Or watch videos? Or manage the library of your ebooks? Or track your expenses? Or control project management like Jira? Or keep your knowledge base and note-taking? Or interact with LLMs? Or explore APIs like Postman? Or keep your spaced repetition flash cards like Anki? Or use it for chat over platforms like Telegram and Slack? Or find and read RFCs and manpages? Or to perform web-search, search through your browser history, Wikipedia. Do you have etymology lookup, thesaurus, dictionaries, translation? Or to order pizza? Or measure distances between coordinates on a map? Automate things based on solar calendar or moon phases? Manage all your configs, aka dotfiles? OCR images with text? List, browse and code review Pull Requests, etc., etc. In what sense exactly is Neovim/VSCode/IntelliJ/whatever is a "huge improvement", please tell us?
    - 7qW24A 1y ago
      This is a pretty weird hill to die on, boss. Are you suggesting that all of the software written over the years by emacs users (eg gcc) is “ivory tower”? As a community of practitioners we should embrace the idea that not all tools have to be “ideal” for all users. Some people like hacking their editor, and some don’t. If software tools sink to the lowest common denominator, like the vast majority of commercial software, we’ll all be worse for it.
      - pdimitar 1y ago
        1. I ain't willing to die on any hill. In fact I was 100% certain I'll regret commenting negatively on Emacs. Pretty ardent and devoted fans, it seems. 2. The ivory tower thing is dedicated to the parent poster sounding a bit elitistic and trying to imply I am doing it wrong and he's doing it right -- which I did not deny by the way (which is the really funny part) as my central point was "too much freedom is not good". 3. I completely agree with the notion that not all tools are ideal for all users. I used this sub-thread to express a strong opinion that Emacs allows the "too much freedom" thing that actually becomes much more of a hurdle for those of us that just want to get on with it. I was sure it's going to ruffle feathers which makes me commenting on it fairly stupid, come to think of it, because I was not looking to pick fights, but just to broadcast an apparently unpopular opinion and never engage with replies. Which I failed spectacularly. :D > If software tools sink to the lowest common denominator, like the vast majority of commercial software, we’ll all be worse for it. Here's the part where you and I will disagree. Your statement is correct on the outset but I take issue with it because I take it as a hint that Emacs > all other editors. Which cannot be stated as a fact, ever, not for any editor, not just Emacs.
    - xedrac 1y ago
      I know you're being down voted, but I've struggled with my Emacs config breaking quite frequently over the years. Nearly all of the breakages were due to plugins. I assume these breakages would be far less common if I was only using old plugins like Helm. But I like fancy new plugins that bring new functionality and smooth UX. They just seem to make breaking changes a lot more often. As far as performance goes, Emacs is roughly equal to VSCode IMO. It sometimes chokes on large files, but in general works well enough for me. To be fair, I've had trouble with Neovim + plugins becoming sluggish as well.
      - pdimitar 1y ago
        I am no longer impressed by the gray color treatment of my comments when it happens (don't get the impression that it's the norm; it's fairly rare). HN has showed me that it's much more about group-think and cargo culting than objective and calm discussion. Obviously those elements still kinda sorta prevail a good part of the time but for the most part the random HN user fell victim to the usual big herd logic fallacies. So let them press their arrows, that's not changing anything. And I didn't even claim something is objectively / universally bad. I said that the priorities of Emacs are not my priorities, in not-the-perfect diplomatic way that's apparently expected. Some people couldn't take that and pressed the arrow. It's their right. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ With that being said, I also struggled with Emacs. Again, too much freedom. I don't want to care where am I supposed to put `.el` files. I want a plugin manager and to be able to tell it: install / update / delete. Neovim's Lazy and Mason do that and that's why I love them. Just earlier today some configuration of a plugin broke; it used git submodules and something got moved and the new revision used another mechanism. I literally fixed it in 5 seconds: deleted the plugin, installed it again, and configuration persisted and I didn't have to set it up again. Reopen a file (just input `:e` in the command bar), everything worked right away. Is this too much to ask of Emacs? > They just seem to make breaking changes a lot more often. That was my experience as well. Always some warning in the command bar or a full-blown stack trace. No thanks. I don't associate with amateur work.
    - OhMeadhbh 1y ago
      Hey... could you write about one or two of the worst offenses? I consider myself an emacs/elisp power user, yet somehow (M)ELPA seems pretty doinked out-of-the-box on a stock Debian nox-emacs install. I just thought it was me.
      - pdimitar 1y ago
        My apologies, but I no longer remember. I only remember my huge annoyance that almost anything I did, even successful, led to some warnings or unnecessary notifications in the command bar. Always some noise there. Not to mention the occasional actual failure in a plugin leading to huge stacktraces and leaving me with a partially working editor that kind of still works but not quite. My brain mercifully deleted all details. At one point I really had enough (and waiting for 19 years for an editor to get better is IMO having an angelic patience that Emacs did not deserve) and just moved on and forgot all about it.
        OhMeadhbh 1y ago
        Fair enough. I envy your brain's ability to excise editor-induced trauma. There are so many things about modern EMACS I don't like, but for me I think it's inertia that keeps me in a co-dependent relationship with it. (and... I have to admit... it does do many things well.)
        pdimitar 1y ago
        I was in a co-dependent relationship as well. I have to admit it was extremely uncomfortable to "part ways". > * I envy your brain's ability to excise editor-induced trauma.* That's a really funny way of putting it, thanks. I am simply one of the people who never truly settles and if something irks me for long enough, I ultimately cut the toxic element. And yeah it's often painful. But that also gave me my amazing wife. If I stuck with my toxic ex I would be absolutely nowhere in life right now.
Graziano_M 1y ago
I understand it's improved, but Emacs was always too slow for me. Additionally, in my workflow I open my editor across many many terminals, the startup time alone prevented this. With emacsclient it was faster, but I specifically DON'T want to have a window that shows all my other open files.
- iLemming 1y ago
  > I specifically DON'T want to have a window that shows all my other open files. There are multiple different ways of separating project/workspace/etc. contexts in Emacs - tab-bar mode, persp.el, etc.
OhMeadhbh 1y ago
I've been using EMACS since it was TECO on TOPS-10. Not a day goes by that I don't spend at least an hour with it. But it is long in the tooth and the abstractions it exposes are as advanced as they can be without breaking reverse compatibility. It is one of the few packages I think would be improved by a fully-supported package manager. E-Lisp is a warren of inefficiency, notational paucity and half-implemented tools. If someone wanted to build an emacs-like text editor in Lua or Fennel, I would absolutely sign up as a beta tester (assuming the key bindings were mostly the same.)

Wake me up when its authors realize most of us don't want to "hack" our editors. They're still stuck in 1980. We actually have to pay bills and want to spend time with our families and go out in nature. I appreciate customization; that's why I moved to Neovim and not to a full-blown GUI IDE (and I'll never use those). But that editor you speak of practically requires me to fix the idiocies of plugin authors that can't be bothered to run 7 tests on their code. I get it, a lot of programmers are cult followers. I was as well. At one point though, pragmatism should prevail. The editor should ideally be non-laggy and not spit warnings after I move from one buffer to another. Just embarrassing.

Zambyte 1y ago
I haven't really touched my emacs config in years. I just set it up how I wanted and now I use it to pay my bills. It sounds like the flexibility was just too tempting for you to not hack on it when you should be doing other things.
- pdimitar 1y ago
  I have set it up 50 times and it crapped the bed every time. Before anyone yells "skill issue!", I'll say that if any plugin author can make the editor crap the bed, then the editor is not good. There are degrees to freedom. Complete freedom in such environments is a liability, not an asset. Say hi to the others in the ivory tower. And remind them not to do selective omissions in their supposed counter-arguments to "win" an argument, and that it's a cheap tactic.
  - WhatIsDukkha 1y ago
    I have about 140 Emacs plugins running. I've never had to declare Emacs bankruptcy. 10 years of good times with Emacs+evil and 35 years of vim. Fwiw.
    - pdimitar 1y ago
      Sadly that's not worth anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anecdotal evidence in both directions. I had a soft spot for Emacs for a _long_ time (almost two decades)... FWIW. ;) Key word: had.
      - worthless-trash 1y ago
        Now you're living life large with jetbrains and making the big bucks !
        pdimitar 1y ago
        Nope. Neovim. And even there some of the "distros" got on my nerves. I guess at one point I'll just learn Neovim's API and make my own blend like everyone else. NOT looking forward to it. But I suppose there's no other way. I still view Neovim as a huge improvement over Emacs though.
        iLemming 1y ago
        > I still view Neovim as a huge improvement Neovim unlike Emacs is an editor. Emacs is not a mere code editor, not an IDE, text-processor, or web-browser. Emacs first and foremost is a Lisp REPL, with a built-in text-editor. Without deeply understanding that aspect one can never truly appreciate the incredible power it grants you. Do you use your editor to read and annotate pdfs? Or watch videos? Or manage the library of your ebooks? Or track your expenses? Or control project management like Jira? Or keep your knowledge base and note-taking? Or interact with LLMs? Or explore APIs like Postman? Or keep your spaced repetition flash cards like Anki? Or use it for chat over platforms like Telegram and Slack? Or find and read RFCs and manpages? Or to perform web-search, search through your browser history, Wikipedia. Do you have etymology lookup, thesaurus, dictionaries, translation? Or to order pizza? Or measure distances between coordinates on a map? Automate things based on solar calendar or moon phases? Manage all your configs, aka dotfiles? OCR images with text? List, browse and code review Pull Requests, etc., etc. In what sense exactly is Neovim/VSCode/IntelliJ/whatever is a "huge improvement", please tell us?
  - 7qW24A 1y ago
    This is a pretty weird hill to die on, boss. Are you suggesting that all of the software written over the years by emacs users (eg gcc) is “ivory tower”? As a community of practitioners we should embrace the idea that not all tools have to be “ideal” for all users. Some people like hacking their editor, and some don’t. If software tools sink to the lowest common denominator, like the vast majority of commercial software, we’ll all be worse for it.
    - pdimitar 1y ago
      1. I ain't willing to die on any hill. In fact I was 100% certain I'll regret commenting negatively on Emacs. Pretty ardent and devoted fans, it seems. 2. The ivory tower thing is dedicated to the parent poster sounding a bit elitistic and trying to imply I am doing it wrong and he's doing it right -- which I did not deny by the way (which is the really funny part) as my central point was "too much freedom is not good". 3. I completely agree with the notion that not all tools are ideal for all users. I used this sub-thread to express a strong opinion that Emacs allows the "too much freedom" thing that actually becomes much more of a hurdle for those of us that just want to get on with it. I was sure it's going to ruffle feathers which makes me commenting on it fairly stupid, come to think of it, because I was not looking to pick fights, but just to broadcast an apparently unpopular opinion and never engage with replies. Which I failed spectacularly. :D > If software tools sink to the lowest common denominator, like the vast majority of commercial software, we’ll all be worse for it. Here's the part where you and I will disagree. Your statement is correct on the outset but I take issue with it because I take it as a hint that Emacs > all other editors. Which cannot be stated as a fact, ever, not for any editor, not just Emacs.
  - xedrac 1y ago
    I know you're being down voted, but I've struggled with my Emacs config breaking quite frequently over the years. Nearly all of the breakages were due to plugins. I assume these breakages would be far less common if I was only using old plugins like Helm. But I like fancy new plugins that bring new functionality and smooth UX. They just seem to make breaking changes a lot more often. As far as performance goes, Emacs is roughly equal to VSCode IMO. It sometimes chokes on large files, but in general works well enough for me. To be fair, I've had trouble with Neovim + plugins becoming sluggish as well.
    - pdimitar 1y ago
      I am no longer impressed by the gray color treatment of my comments when it happens (don't get the impression that it's the norm; it's fairly rare). HN has showed me that it's much more about group-think and cargo culting than objective and calm discussion. Obviously those elements still kinda sorta prevail a good part of the time but for the most part the random HN user fell victim to the usual big herd logic fallacies. So let them press their arrows, that's not changing anything. And I didn't even claim something is objectively / universally bad. I said that the priorities of Emacs are not my priorities, in not-the-perfect diplomatic way that's apparently expected. Some people couldn't take that and pressed the arrow. It's their right. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ With that being said, I also struggled with Emacs. Again, too much freedom. I don't want to care where am I supposed to put `.el` files. I want a plugin manager and to be able to tell it: install / update / delete. Neovim's Lazy and Mason do that and that's why I love them. Just earlier today some configuration of a plugin broke; it used git submodules and something got moved and the new revision used another mechanism. I literally fixed it in 5 seconds: deleted the plugin, installed it again, and configuration persisted and I didn't have to set it up again. Reopen a file (just input `:e` in the command bar), everything worked right away. Is this too much to ask of Emacs? > They just seem to make breaking changes a lot more often. That was my experience as well. Always some warning in the command bar or a full-blown stack trace. No thanks. I don't associate with amateur work.
  - OhMeadhbh 1y ago
    Hey... could you write about one or two of the worst offenses? I consider myself an emacs/elisp power user, yet somehow (M)ELPA seems pretty doinked out-of-the-box on a stock Debian nox-emacs install. I just thought it was me.
    - pdimitar 1y ago
      My apologies, but I no longer remember. I only remember my huge annoyance that almost anything I did, even successful, led to some warnings or unnecessary notifications in the command bar. Always some noise there. Not to mention the occasional actual failure in a plugin leading to huge stacktraces and leaving me with a partially working editor that kind of still works but not quite. My brain mercifully deleted all details. At one point I really had enough (and waiting for 19 years for an editor to get better is IMO having an angelic patience that Emacs did not deserve) and just moved on and forgot all about it.
      - OhMeadhbh 1y ago
        Fair enough. I envy your brain's ability to excise editor-induced trauma. There are so many things about modern EMACS I don't like, but for me I think it's inertia that keeps me in a co-dependent relationship with it. (and... I have to admit... it does do many things well.)
        pdimitar 1y ago
        I was in a co-dependent relationship as well. I have to admit it was extremely uncomfortable to "part ways". > * I envy your brain's ability to excise editor-induced trauma.* That's a really funny way of putting it, thanks. I am simply one of the people who never truly settles and if something irks me for long enough, I ultimately cut the toxic element. And yeah it's often painful. But that also gave me my amazing wife. If I stuck with my toxic ex I would be absolutely nowhere in life right now.

Graziano_M 1y ago

I understand it's improved, but Emacs was always too slow for me. Additionally, in my workflow I open my editor across many many terminals, the startup time alone prevented this. With emacsclient it was faster, but I specifically DON'T want to have a window that shows all my other open files.

iLemming 1y ago
> I specifically DON'T want to have a window that shows all my other open files. There are multiple different ways of separating project/workspace/etc. contexts in Emacs - tab-bar mode, persp.el, etc.

OhMeadhbh 1y ago

I've been using EMACS since it was TECO on TOPS-10. Not a day goes by that I don't spend at least an hour with it. But it is long in the tooth and the abstractions it exposes are as advanced as they can be without breaking reverse compatibility. It is one of the few packages I think would be improved by a fully-supported package manager. E-Lisp is a warren of inefficiency, notational paucity and half-implemented tools. If someone wanted to build an emacs-like text editor in Lua or Fennel, I would absolutely sign up as a beta tester (assuming the key bindings were mostly the same.)