3 ms·

Emacs has a GUI with icons and menus and tooltips and all that. Isn't that what a true beginner would use anyway instead of the terminal version?

lloeki 9y ago
We're talking terminal (not GUI) editors here. If I fire emacs on macOS there's no menu displayed by default. If I connect remotely on a Debian machine, the menu is there but mouse reporting is not working. The help, if started by itself, vanishes at the first keypress (on macOS), which makes it really easy to skip the C-x C-c part, and uses the emacs-only convention of C- instead of the well known ^ for control (although it's explained right there), thus doubly easy to miss. I can see how newcomers would be turned away from it.
- AsyncAwait 9y ago
  vi(m) is usually included by default and is no easier to use for a beginner, so why not emacs?
  - lloeki 9y ago
    `apt-get install emacs-nox` pulls in 83MB on jessie. The installed-by-default one is vim-tiny (clocking in at 27MB), not vim-nox (which pulls in an additional 21MB), for which there is no similar emacs package. Turns out nano is ~370kB, that makes for a small non-modal beginner editor, the modal one being covered by vim-tiny.
    - AsyncAwait 9y ago
      Fair, but I don't think 20MB vs 80MB should be a problem in 2017, people are downloading ~60GB games off Steam, downloading a ~5GB ISO every 6-24 months is not that much in comparison.
      - type0 9y ago
        For some people on the move data transfers are expensive, even if 80MB isn't much that adds up very fast.
  - cryptonector 9y ago
    Because modal editing is where it's at!
coldtea 9y ago
>Emacs has a GUI with icons and menus and tooltips and all that. Which is still nearly useless without knowing of lots of Emacs arcana.
kire456 9y ago
I was once a "true beginner", having been forced to use basic terminal commands in school and having decided to get a raspberry pi and shove Raspbian on it for laughs. There is no GUI over ssh from Windows unless you already know what you're doing. In that context, accidentally opening emacs is bewildering :)
deong 9y ago
That's basically my question. What's the market for people who want a terminal based programmers editor in late 2017 who don't already use Vim or Emacs?

lloeki 9y ago

We're talking terminal (not GUI) editors here. If I fire emacs on macOS there's no menu displayed by default. If I connect remotely on a Debian machine, the menu is there but mouse reporting is not working. The help, if started by itself, vanishes at the first keypress (on macOS), which makes it really easy to skip the C-x C-c part, and uses the emacs-only convention of C- instead of the well known ^ for control (although it's explained right there), thus doubly easy to miss. I can see how newcomers would be turned away from it.

AsyncAwait 9y ago
vi(m) is usually included by default and is no easier to use for a beginner, so why not emacs?
- lloeki 9y ago
  `apt-get install emacs-nox` pulls in 83MB on jessie. The installed-by-default one is vim-tiny (clocking in at 27MB), not vim-nox (which pulls in an additional 21MB), for which there is no similar emacs package. Turns out nano is ~370kB, that makes for a small non-modal beginner editor, the modal one being covered by vim-tiny.
  - AsyncAwait 9y ago
    Fair, but I don't think 20MB vs 80MB should be a problem in 2017, people are downloading ~60GB games off Steam, downloading a ~5GB ISO every 6-24 months is not that much in comparison.
    - type0 9y ago
      For some people on the move data transfers are expensive, even if 80MB isn't much that adds up very fast.
- cryptonector 9y ago
  Because modal editing is where it's at!

coldtea 9y ago

>Emacs has a GUI with icons and menus and tooltips and all that. Which is still nearly useless without knowing of lots of Emacs arcana.

kire456 9y ago

I was once a "true beginner", having been forced to use basic terminal commands in school and having decided to get a raspberry pi and shove Raspbian on it for laughs. There is no GUI over ssh from Windows unless you already know what you're doing. In that context, accidentally opening emacs is bewildering :)

deong 9y ago

That's basically my question. What's the market for people who want a terminal based programmers editor in late 2017 who don't already use Vim or Emacs?