3 ms·

It's still stagnating. Emacs has something like 2% of market share. LSP doesn't add many new features. We had jump to definition etc. for decades with TAGS whic

by zelly 6y ago

It's still stagnating. Emacs has something like 2% of market share. LSP doesn't add many new features. We had jump to definition etc. for decades with TAGS which was much many orders of magnitude faster than LSP. LSP just serves to foster IDE envy and make users switch to a real IDE (and honestly why wouldn't you, if you acknowledge that even a smidgen of IDE features makes you more productive). Emacs will never ever have as the same features or same types of users as IDEs--pursuing that is a losing battle. Emacs should focus on becoming as fast as vim. That's its real competition, not IDEs.

deleted 6y ago
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nvarsj 6y ago
Emacs was never intended as "just a text editor" and it shouldn't strive to be one. It was the first IDE and it is infinitely better than almost any other IDE in terms of customizability. It's main drawback was a lack of very good support for non-LISP languages - TAGS are incredibly simplistic and only let you do basic code navigation. LSP solves that by leveraging the huge amounts of development effort put into VSCode's language support. This makes Emacs, which has a superior editing mode (with evil-mode), and superior customization options, one of the best IDEs available. The only other IDE I use now is Jetbrains for JVM support (because there is no good language server, unfortunately), but I don't enjoy it - you can barely customize it and the text editor sucks compared to what I can do in Emacs.
zarkov99 6y ago
My perspective, as a mostly C++ programmer, is completely different from yours. LSP is great when it works, which unfortunately in my experience is seldom, and it is absolutely key to retaining advanced users. If someone like me, who knows emacs lisp, hates Microsoft and has used emacs for 25 years, is tempted to switch over to VSCode because of its superior C++ IDE tools then surely new programmers will not give Emacs a second look.
- zelly 6y ago
  Is this not the exact phenomenon I was talking about? You have been able to write C++ for 25 years without Microsoft, but now you've gotten IDE envy and want to switch. Of course LSP will always work best on VS Code, which is the platform it was designed for.
  - zarkov99 6y ago
    I re-read your comment and yes, I think I ended up confirming your point. However, I do not agree with the conclusion that its not possible or desirable to compete with an IDE, not at all. A functioning LSP, which is completely achievable, will cure mine and probably many other's IDE envy, and that is why I think its a crucial project.

by zelly 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

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nvarsj 6y ago

Emacs was never intended as "just a text editor" and it shouldn't strive to be one. It was the first IDE and it is infinitely better than almost any other IDE in terms of customizability. It's main drawback was a lack of very good support for non-LISP languages - TAGS are incredibly simplistic and only let you do basic code navigation. LSP solves that by leveraging the huge amounts of development effort put into VSCode's language support. This makes Emacs, which has a superior editing mode (with evil-mode), and superior customization options, one of the best IDEs available. The only other IDE I use now is Jetbrains for JVM support (because there is no good language server, unfortunately), but I don't enjoy it - you can barely customize it and the text editor sucks compared to what I can do in Emacs.

zarkov99 6y ago

My perspective, as a mostly C++ programmer, is completely different from yours. LSP is great when it works, which unfortunately in my experience is seldom, and it is absolutely key to retaining advanced users. If someone like me, who knows emacs lisp, hates Microsoft and has used emacs for 25 years, is tempted to switch over to VSCode because of its superior C++ IDE tools then surely new programmers will not give Emacs a second look.

zelly 6y ago
Is this not the exact phenomenon I was talking about? You have been able to write C++ for 25 years without Microsoft, but now you've gotten IDE envy and want to switch. Of course LSP will always work best on VS Code, which is the platform it was designed for.
- zarkov99 6y ago
  I re-read your comment and yes, I think I ended up confirming your point. However, I do not agree with the conclusion that its not possible or desirable to compete with an IDE, not at all. A functioning LSP, which is completely achievable, will cure mine and probably many other's IDE envy, and that is why I think its a crucial project.