4 ms·

I sometimes feel that someone needs to declare "elisp bankruptcy" in the same vein as one declares inbox bankruptcy, accept that implementing all of elisp in an

by na85 6y ago

I sometimes feel that someone needs to declare "elisp bankruptcy" in the same vein as one declares inbox bankruptcy, accept that implementing all of elisp in another superior lisp is too much work, write a better emacs-alike from the ground up in a proper, performant lisp, and let the package authors do the work of porting their packages.

tines 6y ago
> let the package authors do the work of porting their packages. Unfortunately that will never happen, and since packages are the reason anyone uses anything, no one will use the newmacs. If there were a translation layer for backwards compatibility then that could work, but the one with more packages wins, so I don't think it could work without it.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  Neovim is getting good traction in the vim space. It turns out that developers are also annoyed by these issues on legacy platforms and are motivated to support the new system.
  - tines 6y ago
    I'm not familiar with the vim world. How different is the neovim API? Do the developers maintain two versions of their plugins?
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      I'm not that familiar with the details. My understanding is that neovim at least mostly supports the vim language, but also offers other APIs (not clear about whether these APIs are extensions of the VIM language or altogether different) that allow developers to work around common VIM issues. My crude impression is that developers actively prefer to interface with the new APIs, and many packages aren't even backwards compatible with VIM.
nine_k 6y ago
This has happened, and the result is VSCode. Of course, ES6 is less powerful than Scheme, but the speed and the mindshare outweighed the homoiconicity and the macros :-\
- fredmorcos 6y ago
  This comparison is laughable and ignorant.
- logicchains 6y ago
  Anecdata: I switched from VSCode to Emacs because VSCode kept freezing, have not once regretted that decision.
  - nine_k 6y ago
    This is especially funny given ES6's allegedly superior concurrency story. 30 years in development do help avoid some pitfalls, though.
- fizixer 6y ago
  VSCode is a M$ initiative. Give it a couple years.
- onetom 6y ago
  I got the feeling that Atom might be a better analogy. For example, you can get a Spacemacs like environment if you use the Proton extension (https://discuss.atom.io/t/announce-proton-vim-focused-spacemacs-inspired-way-of-using-atom-help-wanted/23263 https://discuss.atom.io/t/announce-proton-vim-focused-spacem...), which itself is written in ClojureScript, which is live-reloadable...
- ssivark 6y ago
  Speed and mindshare don’t make up for a lack of flexibility and power. No one’s gonna be running a window manager based on VS Code, and that should tell you something (see EXWM)
  - 6y ago
teataster 6y ago
Honest question. What's wrong with elisp? I have never been limited by it. Granted, it's probably the worst lisp. But it works just fine for it's intended use. It could be argued that is one of the most used lisps. As for porting packages, some are old and will never get ported and packages are the spice of emacs.
- na85 6y ago
  The language itself I don't really have a problem with, but it's slow.

by na85 6y ago

tines 6y ago

> let the package authors do the work of porting their packages. Unfortunately that will never happen, and since packages are the reason anyone uses anything, no one will use the newmacs. If there were a translation layer for backwards compatibility then that could work, but the one with more packages wins, so I don't think it could work without it.

throwaway894345 6y ago
Neovim is getting good traction in the vim space. It turns out that developers are also annoyed by these issues on legacy platforms and are motivated to support the new system.
- tines 6y ago
  I'm not familiar with the vim world. How different is the neovim API? Do the developers maintain two versions of their plugins?
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    I'm not that familiar with the details. My understanding is that neovim at least mostly supports the vim language, but also offers other APIs (not clear about whether these APIs are extensions of the VIM language or altogether different) that allow developers to work around common VIM issues. My crude impression is that developers actively prefer to interface with the new APIs, and many packages aren't even backwards compatible with VIM.

nine_k 6y ago

This has happened, and the result is VSCode. Of course, ES6 is less powerful than Scheme, but the speed and the mindshare outweighed the homoiconicity and the macros :-\

fredmorcos 6y ago
This comparison is laughable and ignorant.
logicchains 6y ago
Anecdata: I switched from VSCode to Emacs because VSCode kept freezing, have not once regretted that decision.
- nine_k 6y ago
  This is especially funny given ES6's allegedly superior concurrency story. 30 years in development do help avoid some pitfalls, though.
fizixer 6y ago
VSCode is a M$ initiative. Give it a couple years.
onetom 6y ago
I got the feeling that Atom might be a better analogy. For example, you can get a Spacemacs like environment if you use the Proton extension (https://discuss.atom.io/t/announce-proton-vim-focused-spacemacs-inspired-way-of-using-atom-help-wanted/23263 https://discuss.atom.io/t/announce-proton-vim-focused-spacem...), which itself is written in ClojureScript, which is live-reloadable...
ssivark 6y ago
Speed and mindshare don’t make up for a lack of flexibility and power. No one’s gonna be running a window manager based on VS Code, and that should tell you something (see EXWM)
- 6y ago

teataster 6y ago

Honest question. What's wrong with elisp? I have never been limited by it. Granted, it's probably the worst lisp. But it works just fine for it's intended use. It could be argued that is one of the most used lisps. As for porting packages, some are old and will never get ported and packages are the spice of emacs.

na85 6y ago
The language itself I don't really have a problem with, but it's slow.