4 ms·

You might as well be a lisp programmer who doesn't think recursively.

oblio 10y ago
The analogy would hold if Emacs would be used only for Lisp. But I see it recommended from time to time as the development environment for various non-Lisp programming languages. And if you create artificial barriers to entry, don't expect many people to stick around to enjoy the supposed benefits at the end of the rainbow.
- easytiger 10y ago
  My point was in emacs you don't think in tabs.
  - oblio 10y ago
    And my point was that I should be free to think in whatever I want. If the other bastion of go-your-own-way, Vim, has tabs, I'm pretty sure the Emacs could have them as well. Especially since Emacs prides itself on being a jack of all trades, unlike the "limited" Sublime or Notepad++, for example.
    - easytiger 10y ago
      Hmm, your tone indicates were this is likely to go.. but... Emacs can have tabs and it can have goto next etc. What do you want? for them to override out of the box the default method of buffer and frame mgmt in emacs?
      - oblio 10y ago
        I've tried Emacs and I've tried several tab packages. None of them seemed to work properly, and I wasn't expecting much. I just wanted a visual list of frames or whatever they're called, preferably at the top of the screen, preferably visible despite whatever mode I was in and preferably easily manageable through keyboard commands. For an exact example of what I wanted, just open GVim. You will notice that tabs are added on top of the existing Vim concepts, such as buffers, and you can easily use Vim/Gvim without actually using tabs. You can even disable the tabbar. I couldn't get that without major hassle. I don't really want anything from Emacs, I'm just pointing out that: - Emacs is frequently aggressively promoted as some sort of holy grail of text editing - people say that they are using an editor such as Sublime which does what they want - Emacs folks then point out that Emacs can do whatever Sublime can and more To which I'm just giving 1 data point of Emacs not being able to do what Sublime does out of the box. And "code it yourself" is not a valid reply since a flexible and robust tab management solution in the Emacs environment is not a trivial project. Anyway, different philosophies, both successful.
        justinhj 10y ago
        In emacs frames are distinct windows on the display manager. Then you have buffers which usually are a file you are editing but also contain things like directories of files, list of buffers and messages from emacs. It's really easy to switch between buffers using a couple of key commands. Another command brings up the list of buffers which you can search with the same search command you use in a file. You can sort or filter the list. With all this you really don't need tabs cluttering up the screen.
        zeveb 10y ago
        > I just wanted a visual list of frames or whatever they're called, preferably at the top of the screen, preferably visible despite whatever mode I was in and preferably easily manageable through keyboard commands. The list-buffers command provides exactly that: a list of buffers, easily manageable through keyboard commands. You can have a window containing that list at the top of every frame. I don't think that you'd end up actually wanting that, since in emacs it's common to have dozens or hundreds of buffers open, but you can if you like. If you'd prefer a look like you're used to, there's https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TabBarMode https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TabBarMode Again, I don't think you'd actually want to do that, but you can. > To which I'm just giving 1 data point of Emacs not being able to do what Sublime does out of the box. It is perfectly able to, being a Turing-complete text editor. But trying to do that doesn't make sense. > And "code it yourself" is not a valid reply since a flexible and robust tab management solution in the Emacs environment is not a trivial project. Neither was a text editor, neither was a Usenet client, neither was a web browser, neither was a git interface, neither was org-mode — and yet all those and more have been done.
        chr1 10y ago
        Somewhy many conversations about emacs go like this: A: emacs is awesome, you should use it. B: I can't use it since it misses this one feature i like. A: it is a stupid feature, but there are plugins doing half of what you like, and you can create another plugin. B: it is too much work, i don't have time to do that. A: people have created plugins that required even more work... Emacs is a great editor, and for people who get used to its ui limitations, it is often the best editor, but for new users the ancient ui is a huge roadblock, and most users never will get past it. Not implementing modern ui and not being interested in what new users like is a perfectly valid choice for emacs developers, but then saying emacs is great and not liking it is the users fault is illogical.
    - zeveb 10y ago
      > And my point was that I should be free to think in whatever I want. You are quite free to do that: go forth and freely implement your own tabs if the existing tab packages don't do what you want! Heck, you might even get the emacs dev team to include your package in the default elisp packages. You don't have tasking authority for the emacs devs; it's puzzling that you seem to believe you ought to.
      - oblio 10y ago
        > You don't have tasking authority for the emacs devs; it's puzzling that you seem to believe you ought to. You're probably right, I shouldn't have been ranting. On the other hand, I'm a bit tired of the holier-than-thou attitude of many Emacs (and many Vim users) on internet forums. In my case I voted with my feet already :)
        zeveb 10y ago
        > On the other hand, I'm a bit tired of the holier-than-thou attitude of many Emacs (and many Vim users) on internet forums. Well, think back to when you were a kid in school. Did the high-schoolers consider themselves better-educated than the first-graders? Almost certainly. Were they right? Indubitably. vi & emacs are, simply, superior to the alternatives (albeit imperfect in themselves). It's a recasting of the Blub Paradox: someone using a moderately-powerful editor can see how it's better than Notepad or nano, but cannot see how emacs or vi is better than his own editor. From his perspective, users of better editors are self-congratulatory and delusional — the problem is that his perspective is wrong: there is an objective ranking of editors, and his is worse than theirs. > In my case I voted with my feet already :) In the long run, that's like being truant. Sure, it saves one some miserable hours in school, but those miserable hours buy one an education. Life's too short to use Atom, Eclipse, SublimeText or TextMate.

oblio 10y ago

The analogy would hold if Emacs would be used only for Lisp. But I see it recommended from time to time as the development environment for various non-Lisp programming languages. And if you create artificial barriers to entry, don't expect many people to stick around to enjoy the supposed benefits at the end of the rainbow.

easytiger 10y ago
My point was in emacs you don't think in tabs.
- oblio 10y ago
  And my point was that I should be free to think in whatever I want. If the other bastion of go-your-own-way, Vim, has tabs, I'm pretty sure the Emacs could have them as well. Especially since Emacs prides itself on being a jack of all trades, unlike the "limited" Sublime or Notepad++, for example.
  - easytiger 10y ago
    Hmm, your tone indicates were this is likely to go.. but... Emacs can have tabs and it can have goto next etc. What do you want? for them to override out of the box the default method of buffer and frame mgmt in emacs?
    - oblio 10y ago
      I've tried Emacs and I've tried several tab packages. None of them seemed to work properly, and I wasn't expecting much. I just wanted a visual list of frames or whatever they're called, preferably at the top of the screen, preferably visible despite whatever mode I was in and preferably easily manageable through keyboard commands. For an exact example of what I wanted, just open GVim. You will notice that tabs are added on top of the existing Vim concepts, such as buffers, and you can easily use Vim/Gvim without actually using tabs. You can even disable the tabbar. I couldn't get that without major hassle. I don't really want anything from Emacs, I'm just pointing out that: - Emacs is frequently aggressively promoted as some sort of holy grail of text editing - people say that they are using an editor such as Sublime which does what they want - Emacs folks then point out that Emacs can do whatever Sublime can and more To which I'm just giving 1 data point of Emacs not being able to do what Sublime does out of the box. And "code it yourself" is not a valid reply since a flexible and robust tab management solution in the Emacs environment is not a trivial project. Anyway, different philosophies, both successful.
      - justinhj 10y ago
        In emacs frames are distinct windows on the display manager. Then you have buffers which usually are a file you are editing but also contain things like directories of files, list of buffers and messages from emacs. It's really easy to switch between buffers using a couple of key commands. Another command brings up the list of buffers which you can search with the same search command you use in a file. You can sort or filter the list. With all this you really don't need tabs cluttering up the screen.
      - zeveb 10y ago
        > I just wanted a visual list of frames or whatever they're called, preferably at the top of the screen, preferably visible despite whatever mode I was in and preferably easily manageable through keyboard commands. The list-buffers command provides exactly that: a list of buffers, easily manageable through keyboard commands. You can have a window containing that list at the top of every frame. I don't think that you'd end up actually wanting that, since in emacs it's common to have dozens or hundreds of buffers open, but you can if you like. If you'd prefer a look like you're used to, there's https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TabBarMode https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TabBarMode Again, I don't think you'd actually want to do that, but you can. > To which I'm just giving 1 data point of Emacs not being able to do what Sublime does out of the box. It is perfectly able to, being a Turing-complete text editor. But trying to do that doesn't make sense. > And "code it yourself" is not a valid reply since a flexible and robust tab management solution in the Emacs environment is not a trivial project. Neither was a text editor, neither was a Usenet client, neither was a web browser, neither was a git interface, neither was org-mode — and yet all those and more have been done.
        chr1 10y ago
        Somewhy many conversations about emacs go like this: A: emacs is awesome, you should use it. B: I can't use it since it misses this one feature i like. A: it is a stupid feature, but there are plugins doing half of what you like, and you can create another plugin. B: it is too much work, i don't have time to do that. A: people have created plugins that required even more work... Emacs is a great editor, and for people who get used to its ui limitations, it is often the best editor, but for new users the ancient ui is a huge roadblock, and most users never will get past it. Not implementing modern ui and not being interested in what new users like is a perfectly valid choice for emacs developers, but then saying emacs is great and not liking it is the users fault is illogical.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    > And my point was that I should be free to think in whatever I want. You are quite free to do that: go forth and freely implement your own tabs if the existing tab packages don't do what you want! Heck, you might even get the emacs dev team to include your package in the default elisp packages. You don't have tasking authority for the emacs devs; it's puzzling that you seem to believe you ought to.
    - oblio 10y ago
      > You don't have tasking authority for the emacs devs; it's puzzling that you seem to believe you ought to. You're probably right, I shouldn't have been ranting. On the other hand, I'm a bit tired of the holier-than-thou attitude of many Emacs (and many Vim users) on internet forums. In my case I voted with my feet already :)
      - zeveb 10y ago
        > On the other hand, I'm a bit tired of the holier-than-thou attitude of many Emacs (and many Vim users) on internet forums. Well, think back to when you were a kid in school. Did the high-schoolers consider themselves better-educated than the first-graders? Almost certainly. Were they right? Indubitably. vi & emacs are, simply, superior to the alternatives (albeit imperfect in themselves). It's a recasting of the Blub Paradox: someone using a moderately-powerful editor can see how it's better than Notepad or nano, but cannot see how emacs or vi is better than his own editor. From his perspective, users of better editors are self-congratulatory and delusional — the problem is that his perspective is wrong: there is an objective ranking of editors, and his is worse than theirs. > In my case I voted with my feet already :) In the long run, that's like being truant. Sure, it saves one some miserable hours in school, but those miserable hours buy one an education. Life's too short to use Atom, Eclipse, SublimeText or TextMate.