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Emacs user here. I have used lot's of IDE's in the past until I decided to take Emacs seriously. The problem with IDE's is that you have to learn one for each

Emacs user here. I have used lot's of IDE's in the past until I decided to take Emacs seriously. The problem with IDE's is that you have to learn one for each language. Working on multi-language projects becomes really annoying. With Emacs I can remain in the same place. If I spend a little bit configuring it I get most of the IDE features. I am always at home. Git is there too. Now I even check my email there, great for emailing about technical stuff. Muscle memory works until it is almost part of yourself. A couple of things might take a bit more to configure (C++ smartness). But it is a free software program that has been around like 30 years. I am confident it is a tool I can invest in and it won't let me down. I can not say the same about proprietary IDE's and editors.

oblio 9y ago
Sounds reasonable, you're basically investing in an ecosystem that trades flexibility for polish. However, I have to point something out which proved to be an eye-opener for some people I've discussed the second point you bring up: > But it is a free software program that has been around like 30 years. I am confident it is a tool I can invest in and it won't let me down. I can not say the same about proprietary IDE's and editors. This argument is a bit dated, I think it harks back to the days of Borland IDEs and the Halloween Papers for Microsoft. Why do I think it's a bit dated: 1. Quite a few of the commercial IDEs are not fully proprietary anymore, for example the core of the Jetbrains IDEs is Open Source; Visual Studio is proprietary but large parts of what it offered have been split into external components which are Open Source, more precisely Roslyn; I'll grant you XCode, but at that point you know you're locking yourself into the proprietary Apple ecosystem anyway; the other major IDEs are actually fully Open Source: Eclipse, Netbeans, Visual Studio Code, Atom 2. The Cathedral and the Bazaar predictions kind of failed ... Open Source didn't take over the world; it carved a segment in the market, a huge one, but still, a segment; proprietary software adjusted and now both coexist in various combinations in between Free Software and fully proprietary software. Both FOSS and commercial projects and products have to please their "clients". They do that, or they die. So the commercial side is in my opinion a lot more flexible than it used to be. 3. The software market is way more mature than it was when the GNU propaganda machine and later the Eric Raymond Open Source-hype machine were fully operational (with IBM backing it) - I'm only half joking about the FSF/Open Source propaganda, we have to acknowledge it for what it was and we aware of it , even if we consider its goals as noble; anyway, just because software vendors were dying like flies back in the 80's and 90's, it doesn't mean that mature software companies today will suffer the same fate. They might be somewhat fickle, and yes, even big companies can go bankrupt, but let's not discuss hypotheticals, let's discuss based on actual data: * Visual Studio was launched in 1997, 21 (!) years ago; Visual Basic was launched in 1991, 27 (!) years ago; I know that Visual Basic didn't transition cleanly to Visual Studio, my point is that many principles from the Visual Basic IDE applied to Visual Studio * Netbeans was launched in 1996, 22 years ago * IntelliJ IDEA was launched in 2001, 17 years ago * Eclipse was launched in 2001 My point is that was impressive to say "Emacs was launched 20 years ago" back in 1999, when the oldest mainstream IDE was 7-8 years old and you had common failures of companies selling IDEs (therefore losing support). However in 2018, as I said, this is a bit dated. Many a Visual Studio developer have fed their family by using this tool from Microsoft over more than 2 decades. Same for Eclipse, Netbeans, IntelliJ. I suspect Visual Studio Code and maybe even Atom will follow this trajectory. So let's stop this FUD, please. Looking at my arguments, I think you can agree with me that based on the data we have, a Visual Studio developer can probably retire successfully in 2040 while still using Visual Studio. And Visual Studio is "risky" because it's majority proprietary. But Eclipse, for example, is fully Open Source, backed by an organization, etc.
- pritambaral 9y ago
  I see your arguments as a meld of two separate ones: 1. Very good IDEs — which may be proprietary — do exist and have existed for a while (the Visual Studio argument); and 2. Free Software IDEs do exist and have existed for a while (the Eclipse argument). However, neither Visual Studio nor Eclipse on its own fulfills both arguments. I think your parent was trying to say that their customized install of Emacs does. As for the point about people being able to make a living off of an IDE for two decades ... well, that's a low bar, isn't it? Lots of people make a living off of no IDEs (the Vim argument) for decades. The argument wasn't really about acceptably good IDEs for the general public, rather about IDEs sufficiently good to the parent's standards. Something they can invest in and reap rewards off of instead of merely using it, thus implying a higher standard than just "does the job".
geoelectric 9y ago
JetBrains IDEs work pretty well as a polyglot system. I do like the language-differentiated IDEs they have since they streamline the interface a bit to what's relevant, but most (if not all) of them are implemented as plugins to IntelliJ too. It's comparable to language-specific Emacs distros vs. modes.
elcritch 9y ago
I've taken up learning emacs again via spacemacs so I can have an editor with console and gui modes. The increased discover-ability has helped me a lot. But what facets of emacs proved valuable after learning them?

oblio 9y ago

Sounds reasonable, you're basically investing in an ecosystem that trades flexibility for polish. However, I have to point something out which proved to be an eye-opener for some people I've discussed the second point you bring up: > But it is a free software program that has been around like 30 years. I am confident it is a tool I can invest in and it won't let me down. I can not say the same about proprietary IDE's and editors. This argument is a bit dated, I think it harks back to the days of Borland IDEs and the Halloween Papers for Microsoft. Why do I think it's a bit dated: 1. Quite a few of the commercial IDEs are not fully proprietary anymore, for example the core of the Jetbrains IDEs is Open Source; Visual Studio is proprietary but large parts of what it offered have been split into external components which are Open Source, more precisely Roslyn; I'll grant you XCode, but at that point you know you're locking yourself into the proprietary Apple ecosystem anyway; the other major IDEs are actually fully Open Source: Eclipse, Netbeans, Visual Studio Code, Atom 2. The Cathedral and the Bazaar predictions kind of failed ... Open Source didn't take over the world; it carved a segment in the market, a huge one, but still, a segment; proprietary software adjusted and now both coexist in various combinations in between Free Software and fully proprietary software. Both FOSS and commercial projects and products have to please their "clients". They do that, or they die. So the commercial side is in my opinion a lot more flexible than it used to be. 3. The software market is way more mature than it was when the GNU propaganda machine and later the Eric Raymond Open Source-hype machine were fully operational (with IBM backing it) - I'm only half joking about the FSF/Open Source propaganda, we have to acknowledge it for what it was and we aware of it , even if we consider its goals as noble; anyway, just because software vendors were dying like flies back in the 80's and 90's, it doesn't mean that mature software companies today will suffer the same fate. They might be somewhat fickle, and yes, even big companies can go bankrupt, but let's not discuss hypotheticals, let's discuss based on actual data: * Visual Studio was launched in 1997, 21 (!) years ago; Visual Basic was launched in 1991, 27 (!) years ago; I know that Visual Basic didn't transition cleanly to Visual Studio, my point is that many principles from the Visual Basic IDE applied to Visual Studio * Netbeans was launched in 1996, 22 years ago * IntelliJ IDEA was launched in 2001, 17 years ago * Eclipse was launched in 2001 My point is that was impressive to say "Emacs was launched 20 years ago" back in 1999, when the oldest mainstream IDE was 7-8 years old and you had common failures of companies selling IDEs (therefore losing support). However in 2018, as I said, this is a bit dated. Many a Visual Studio developer have fed their family by using this tool from Microsoft over more than 2 decades. Same for Eclipse, Netbeans, IntelliJ. I suspect Visual Studio Code and maybe even Atom will follow this trajectory. So let's stop this FUD, please. Looking at my arguments, I think you can agree with me that based on the data we have, a Visual Studio developer can probably retire successfully in 2040 while still using Visual Studio. And Visual Studio is "risky" because it's majority proprietary. But Eclipse, for example, is fully Open Source, backed by an organization, etc.

pritambaral 9y ago
I see your arguments as a meld of two separate ones: 1. Very good IDEs — which may be proprietary — do exist and have existed for a while (the Visual Studio argument); and 2. Free Software IDEs do exist and have existed for a while (the Eclipse argument). However, neither Visual Studio nor Eclipse on its own fulfills both arguments. I think your parent was trying to say that their customized install of Emacs does. As for the point about people being able to make a living off of an IDE for two decades ... well, that's a low bar, isn't it? Lots of people make a living off of no IDEs (the Vim argument) for decades. The argument wasn't really about acceptably good IDEs for the general public, rather about IDEs sufficiently good to the parent's standards. Something they can invest in and reap rewards off of instead of merely using it, thus implying a higher standard than just "does the job".

geoelectric 9y ago

JetBrains IDEs work pretty well as a polyglot system. I do like the language-differentiated IDEs they have since they streamline the interface a bit to what's relevant, but most (if not all) of them are implemented as plugins to IntelliJ too. It's comparable to language-specific Emacs distros vs. modes.

elcritch 9y ago

I've taken up learning emacs again via spacemacs so I can have an editor with console and gui modes. The increased discover-ability has helped me a lot. But what facets of emacs proved valuable after learning them?