4 ms·

The kindest thing we could do for future programmers is let Emacs and all tty-oriented editors die. There are much better options now. UI has improved a lot sin

The kindest thing we could do for future programmers is let Emacs and all tty-oriented editors die. There are much better options now. UI has improved a lot since the 1970s, let's embrace it.

zozbot234 7y ago
Even by the standards of terminal-based applications, Emacs is far from intuitive or attractive - the text-based IDE's from Microsoft ("Quick" series) and Borland ("Turbo" series) were significantly easier to use. (As another example where *nix systems could improve a lot, the Midnight Commander tty app is great, but still not quite as intuitive as the old 'DOS Shell'. Weirdly enough, I find that other TUI apps, such as dselect and aptitude, are quite outstanding but you do need to be on a Debian-based system - they aren't a thing on Fedora or CentOS.)
- PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
  The issue isn't "intuitive or attractive". It's something more like "powerful, learnable, extensible". Nothing else scores as highly on that triad of qualities as Emacs.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    I might agree, but the root post in the thread as linked by OP is literally someone complaining that Emacs doesn't have rounded buttons. (And no it was not posted on April 1, even though that's a sensible question to ask.) And there are other less trivial UX concerns about Emacs that are somewhat more legitimate, even for a tty app.
- donio 7y ago
  > Even by the standards of terminal-based applications, Emacs is far from intuitive or attractive - the text-based IDE's from Microsoft ("Quick" series) and Borland ("Turbo" series) were significantly easier to use. They may be easier to learn (since they have pretty minimal functionality compared to Emacs) or easier to discover when you are new to them but they are definitely not easier to use. I use Emacs not because I am some kind of masochist but because it is the easiest way to get my stuff done.
talentedcoin 7y ago
I’m sorry, what? Which modern editor has tools like SLIME or CIDER?
- azinman2 7y ago
  Genuine question: what's different about SLIME/CIDER than any IDE? Auto-completion, documentation lookup, REPL, code reloading, unit test integration... these are all in Xcode, IntelliJ, Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc depending on language support.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sdegutis 7y ago
  CIDER can just as easily be built as a plugin to VS Code. (Actually, more easily.) It's just that the people who built it chose Emacs, simply because they personally prefer Emacs.
_emacsomancer_ 7y ago
(1) There is GUI Emacs (what you should probably use). (2) There's no better environment available for dealing with text (including notes, papers, slides, email, &c.) than Emacs. Why do you hate future programmers so much?
- snazz 7y ago
  GUI Emacs is a very thin GUI skin on TTY Emacs. As an example someone brought up elsewhere in this thread, you can't scroll (with the mouse) in Emacs without bringing the cursor with you. Scrolling without moving the cursor doesn't make sense in a TUI environment, so it doesn't exist in the GUI version either. Your second point is very subjective and most people are bound to disagree with it. You certainly can't argue that like it's an objective fact, because it's very much not objective.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    > Scrolling without moving the cursor doesn't make sense in a TUI environment It makes perfect sense as soon as you realize there is no reason the cursor has to be the cursor. In curses: curs_set(0); then draw your own 'cursor' wherever you like. Anyway, GUI emacs is way better than terminal emacs. Image support (in terminal emulators this is always an awful hack) and support for different font sizes in the same frame at once is something I'd not give up.
  - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
    It's not really so thin: there's plenty of graphics-related things that don't work in TTY Emacs.
downerending 7y ago
> UI has improved a lot since the 1970s That's far from obvious. I recall terminal interfaces rather fondly. Modern interfaces are often more like a flock of multi-colored rabid weasels trying to get in the way of my work.

The kindest thing we could do for future programmers is let Emacs and all tty-oriented editors die. There are much better options now. UI has improved a lot since the 1970s, let's embrace it.

zozbot234 7y ago

Even by the standards of terminal-based applications, Emacs is far from intuitive or attractive - the text-based IDE's from Microsoft ("Quick" series) and Borland ("Turbo" series) were significantly easier to use. (As another example where *nix systems could improve a lot, the Midnight Commander tty app is great, but still not quite as intuitive as the old 'DOS Shell'. Weirdly enough, I find that other TUI apps, such as dselect and aptitude, are quite outstanding but you do need to be on a Debian-based system - they aren't a thing on Fedora or CentOS.)

PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
The issue isn't "intuitive or attractive". It's something more like "powerful, learnable, extensible". Nothing else scores as highly on that triad of qualities as Emacs.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  I might agree, but the root post in the thread as linked by OP is literally someone complaining that Emacs doesn't have rounded buttons. (And no it was not posted on April 1, even though that's a sensible question to ask.) And there are other less trivial UX concerns about Emacs that are somewhat more legitimate, even for a tty app.
donio 7y ago
> Even by the standards of terminal-based applications, Emacs is far from intuitive or attractive - the text-based IDE's from Microsoft ("Quick" series) and Borland ("Turbo" series) were significantly easier to use. They may be easier to learn (since they have pretty minimal functionality compared to Emacs) or easier to discover when you are new to them but they are definitely not easier to use. I use Emacs not because I am some kind of masochist but because it is the easiest way to get my stuff done.

talentedcoin 7y ago

I’m sorry, what? Which modern editor has tools like SLIME or CIDER?

azinman2 7y ago
Genuine question: what's different about SLIME/CIDER than any IDE? Auto-completion, documentation lookup, REPL, code reloading, unit test integration... these are all in Xcode, IntelliJ, Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc depending on language support.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sdegutis 7y ago
CIDER can just as easily be built as a plugin to VS Code. (Actually, more easily.) It's just that the people who built it chose Emacs, simply because they personally prefer Emacs.

_emacsomancer_ 7y ago

(1) There is GUI Emacs (what you should probably use). (2) There's no better environment available for dealing with text (including notes, papers, slides, email, &c.) than Emacs. Why do you hate future programmers so much?

snazz 7y ago
GUI Emacs is a very thin GUI skin on TTY Emacs. As an example someone brought up elsewhere in this thread, you can't scroll (with the mouse) in Emacs without bringing the cursor with you. Scrolling without moving the cursor doesn't make sense in a TUI environment, so it doesn't exist in the GUI version either. Your second point is very subjective and most people are bound to disagree with it. You certainly can't argue that like it's an objective fact, because it's very much not objective.
- catalogia 7y ago
  > Scrolling without moving the cursor doesn't make sense in a TUI environment It makes perfect sense as soon as you realize there is no reason the cursor has to be the cursor. In curses: curs_set(0); then draw your own 'cursor' wherever you like. Anyway, GUI emacs is way better than terminal emacs. Image support (in terminal emulators this is always an awful hack) and support for different font sizes in the same frame at once is something I'd not give up.
- _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
  It's not really so thin: there's plenty of graphics-related things that don't work in TTY Emacs.

downerending 7y ago

> UI has improved a lot since the 1970s That's far from obvious. I recall terminal interfaces rather fondly. Modern interfaces are often more like a flock of multi-colored rabid weasels trying to get in the way of my work.