5 ms·

Emacs can do far more nice things, for instance meaningful text navigation so you can move not only between lines and columns but also between functions/method/

by xte 8y ago

Emacs can do far more nice things, for instance meaningful text navigation so you can move not only between lines and columns but also between functions/method/class definitions, scope/context/namespaces, paragraphs, ... You can edit multiple files at once (for instance if you change a string, like a variable name, in multiple files), you can edit with multiple cursors, record&execute text macro on the fly and with a prefix to transform code/data in a snap... You can edit file/dirs like text in dired, receive a patch via mail and have it highlighted, applied and committed in a snap... List is long to a point that anything you think if useful probably already exists in Emacs, otherwise you can create it in very few lines of elisp at runtime.

dmitriid 8y ago
How much time do you need to spend setting up all those possibilities? And figuring out all the little incompatibilities be tween all the plugins and modes, and lisp extensions? Most of what you mentioned already exists in most IDEs.
- wry_discontent 8y ago
  That's the trouble. It's more flexible than most ides, but you have to configure it, which isn't easy if you lack the imagination or the technical know-how (elisp).
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    > isn't easy if you lack the imagination wat? > or the technical know-how (elisp) It's not just the technical know-how of knowing elisp. It's also the often arcane ways of configuring emacs and the arcane and often undocumented ways of configuring the packages and plugins and modes that you bring into the system. The amount of hacks one needs to maintain a reasonably working emacs is mind-boggling, and has nothing to do with imagination. I know, I used to maintain one: https://gist.github.com/dmitriid/4078311 https://gist.github.com/dmitriid/4078311
    - xte 8y ago
      With req-package and org-mode init you do not need any specific hack and anything that does not work remain "isolated". Many try el-get, borg, ... but personally I found simple setup effective enough and in years my config is now ~4000 lines of org+elisp + few personal packages...
      - dmitriid 8y ago
        > I found simple setup effective > my config is now ~4000 lines We have critical production services which are a magnitude of lines fewer than your "simple config". There's a reason I linked my own init.el: I'm not talking about something I have no idea about. It's quite short and quite extensively documented. And even there you see: somethign is set as global vars, something is buffer local args, something is inited through hooks, something is inited through hooks and then thorough a global var (doesn't work the other way around), something requires a lambda for a config, something requires a list of values, something is inited through a macro, some are just elisp macros you have to write yourself. And so on and so on. Once you start extending emacs to be your personal programming environment (especially a multi-language environment), you'll run into exactly what I'm talking about: it's not a simple system. There are the often arcane ways of configuring emacs itself, and then there are often arcane ways to configure the modes and packages. And often these are undocumented, or specific ways to configure them are passed down in oral tradition from one init.el to another. Even in this post you see multiple people recommending not just differenet packages, but different combinations of packages (each has to be configured separately). And when something goes wrong? Good luck figuring it out.
        sandos 8y ago
        This is exactly what keeps happening to my emacs. I have tried emacs in 3 or 4 periods for work and home use. Every time, I add useful things to my config until something breaks, I try fix it and maybe fail or partially fix it. I eventually give up. Latesty try was with spacemacs, which I quite liked. It gots so broken it refused to start up and I never even really bothered fixing it. I tried VS Code and that is where I am at. Now my VS Code is getting slow, and Iv'e already had some problems extensions!
- kazinator 8y ago
  The long-time Emacs user has heard this same argument repeatedly for decades, with regard to historic IDEs that no longer exist. How much time do you spend switching to new IDEs every couple of years.
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    Why should I switch to new IDEs every few years? Meanwhile I've had emacs configs fail in subtle and not-so-subtle unpredictable ways with every system or emacs, or mode, or... update
    - xte 8y ago
      Well, in the past I have used Eclipse, Netbeans, SunStudio (essentially netbeans), IntelliJIdea, Oracle JDeveloper and others: all of them are enormously bugged, perhaps Netbans/Sunstudio was the least bugged. All of them suffer from an ever grown dotdirs that sooner or later brake and you need to restart from scratch... In Emacs I have had brackeage, and an emacs bankruptcy. But in all case I have recovered anything when I have time simply investigating, when happen if I'm in hurry a quick revert and anything works again.
      - kazinator 8y ago
        Exactly. If all those IDEs in the IDE graveyard were so good, why are they dead, while your Emacs is still here? Too tied to a platform or language, perhaps, and very specific processes related to these? No vision for extensibility or future maintenance? Sometimes IDEs are very tied to specific target platforms: like IDEs from microcontroller and DSP vendors and such. E.g. if you're programming PICs, you use Microchip's IDE. It provides the image downloading to the target and breakpoint debugging.
        xte 8y ago
        Modern GUIs have no extensibility, they are designed from the widget library to the entire software as commercial product, FOSS included because the idea of "modern" GUIs is commercial at design stage. Emacs, like LispM, Xerox ancient worsktation etc instead was born in a world where software is free, only hardware is commercial. So they are designed from start to be flexible, user-centric, non product-centric. It's worth remembering an ancient joke of MIT AI lab: An engineer ask few secretaries if they know how to program; they respond no. It ask if they were sure; they respond "of course". As a matter fact they use Emacs and program the mode they need, only no one tell them that's programming, they simply learn how to bend a flexible environment to their needs. Another thing worth mentioned is the classic "In the beginning was the command line" paper, short and nice. Unfortunately people born in commercial world that do not know IT history can't really imaging that world and it's power. They are incapable of think outside actual business model so they do not understand that other models and software exists...
- xte 8y ago
  In term of "spending" my answer is ZERO, simply because I do not spent time, I discover things casually or when I feel the need of something and it's nearly always there, ready to go in my config (org-mode based) with a quick cut&paste. Sometime yes, I found a thing that require more investigation or something happen and need action but with modern Emacs is far simpler than undebuggable monsters like Eclipse or Netbeans dotdirs. BTW there is no difference in terms: plugins, extensions etc; core Emacs is an elisp virtual machine and anything are simply sexps, from my own config to the most famous major mode like org. About modern IDE: in Emacs I do anything from mail (notmuch-emacs) to personal finance (ledger) to slides (org-mode with skeletor/yasnippet and reveal.js/beamer) to other documents, to deploy documents, live in org via babel, to window manager (EXWM) etc. No IDE or other app exists that can do anything with the level of simplicity, effectiveness and integration of Emacs. Even in terms of mere editing modern IDE are not integrate with anything but barely themselves so you need tons of different apps to do a single thing, in Emacs everything is there. In terms of time: I was a hardcore vimmer for decades, at a certain point in time I feel the need of something different and I decide to try Emacs. Initially as an editor, after as MUA, after as agenda, after as a file manager, after as a ... discovering new things regularly and ease my life like never before.

by xte 8y ago

dmitriid 8y ago

How much time do you need to spend setting up all those possibilities? And figuring out all the little incompatibilities be tween all the plugins and modes, and lisp extensions? Most of what you mentioned already exists in most IDEs.

wry_discontent 8y ago
That's the trouble. It's more flexible than most ides, but you have to configure it, which isn't easy if you lack the imagination or the technical know-how (elisp).
- dmitriid 8y ago
  > isn't easy if you lack the imagination wat? > or the technical know-how (elisp) It's not just the technical know-how of knowing elisp. It's also the often arcane ways of configuring emacs and the arcane and often undocumented ways of configuring the packages and plugins and modes that you bring into the system. The amount of hacks one needs to maintain a reasonably working emacs is mind-boggling, and has nothing to do with imagination. I know, I used to maintain one: https://gist.github.com/dmitriid/4078311 https://gist.github.com/dmitriid/4078311
  - xte 8y ago
    With req-package and org-mode init you do not need any specific hack and anything that does not work remain "isolated". Many try el-get, borg, ... but personally I found simple setup effective enough and in years my config is now ~4000 lines of org+elisp + few personal packages...
    - dmitriid 8y ago
      > I found simple setup effective > my config is now ~4000 lines We have critical production services which are a magnitude of lines fewer than your "simple config". There's a reason I linked my own init.el: I'm not talking about something I have no idea about. It's quite short and quite extensively documented. And even there you see: somethign is set as global vars, something is buffer local args, something is inited through hooks, something is inited through hooks and then thorough a global var (doesn't work the other way around), something requires a lambda for a config, something requires a list of values, something is inited through a macro, some are just elisp macros you have to write yourself. And so on and so on. Once you start extending emacs to be your personal programming environment (especially a multi-language environment), you'll run into exactly what I'm talking about: it's not a simple system. There are the often arcane ways of configuring emacs itself, and then there are often arcane ways to configure the modes and packages. And often these are undocumented, or specific ways to configure them are passed down in oral tradition from one init.el to another. Even in this post you see multiple people recommending not just differenet packages, but different combinations of packages (each has to be configured separately). And when something goes wrong? Good luck figuring it out.
      - sandos 8y ago
        This is exactly what keeps happening to my emacs. I have tried emacs in 3 or 4 periods for work and home use. Every time, I add useful things to my config until something breaks, I try fix it and maybe fail or partially fix it. I eventually give up. Latesty try was with spacemacs, which I quite liked. It gots so broken it refused to start up and I never even really bothered fixing it. I tried VS Code and that is where I am at. Now my VS Code is getting slow, and Iv'e already had some problems extensions!
kazinator 8y ago
The long-time Emacs user has heard this same argument repeatedly for decades, with regard to historic IDEs that no longer exist. How much time do you spend switching to new IDEs every couple of years.
- dmitriid 8y ago
  Why should I switch to new IDEs every few years? Meanwhile I've had emacs configs fail in subtle and not-so-subtle unpredictable ways with every system or emacs, or mode, or... update
  - xte 8y ago
    Well, in the past I have used Eclipse, Netbeans, SunStudio (essentially netbeans), IntelliJIdea, Oracle JDeveloper and others: all of them are enormously bugged, perhaps Netbans/Sunstudio was the least bugged. All of them suffer from an ever grown dotdirs that sooner or later brake and you need to restart from scratch... In Emacs I have had brackeage, and an emacs bankruptcy. But in all case I have recovered anything when I have time simply investigating, when happen if I'm in hurry a quick revert and anything works again.
    - kazinator 8y ago
      Exactly. If all those IDEs in the IDE graveyard were so good, why are they dead, while your Emacs is still here? Too tied to a platform or language, perhaps, and very specific processes related to these? No vision for extensibility or future maintenance? Sometimes IDEs are very tied to specific target platforms: like IDEs from microcontroller and DSP vendors and such. E.g. if you're programming PICs, you use Microchip's IDE. It provides the image downloading to the target and breakpoint debugging.
      - xte 8y ago
        Modern GUIs have no extensibility, they are designed from the widget library to the entire software as commercial product, FOSS included because the idea of "modern" GUIs is commercial at design stage. Emacs, like LispM, Xerox ancient worsktation etc instead was born in a world where software is free, only hardware is commercial. So they are designed from start to be flexible, user-centric, non product-centric. It's worth remembering an ancient joke of MIT AI lab: An engineer ask few secretaries if they know how to program; they respond no. It ask if they were sure; they respond "of course". As a matter fact they use Emacs and program the mode they need, only no one tell them that's programming, they simply learn how to bend a flexible environment to their needs. Another thing worth mentioned is the classic "In the beginning was the command line" paper, short and nice. Unfortunately people born in commercial world that do not know IT history can't really imaging that world and it's power. They are incapable of think outside actual business model so they do not understand that other models and software exists...
xte 8y ago
In term of "spending" my answer is ZERO, simply because I do not spent time, I discover things casually or when I feel the need of something and it's nearly always there, ready to go in my config (org-mode based) with a quick cut&paste. Sometime yes, I found a thing that require more investigation or something happen and need action but with modern Emacs is far simpler than undebuggable monsters like Eclipse or Netbeans dotdirs. BTW there is no difference in terms: plugins, extensions etc; core Emacs is an elisp virtual machine and anything are simply sexps, from my own config to the most famous major mode like org. About modern IDE: in Emacs I do anything from mail (notmuch-emacs) to personal finance (ledger) to slides (org-mode with skeletor/yasnippet and reveal.js/beamer) to other documents, to deploy documents, live in org via babel, to window manager (EXWM) etc. No IDE or other app exists that can do anything with the level of simplicity, effectiveness and integration of Emacs. Even in terms of mere editing modern IDE are not integrate with anything but barely themselves so you need tons of different apps to do a single thing, in Emacs everything is there. In terms of time: I was a hardcore vimmer for decades, at a certain point in time I feel the need of something different and I decide to try Emacs. Initially as an editor, after as MUA, after as agenda, after as a file manager, after as a ... discovering new things regularly and ease my life like never before.